


A Necropolis in Full Bloom

by Eristastic



Series: Under(fairy)tales [10]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Other, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-07-14 21:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7190480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are ways in which things are done: the ferocious beast stays locked in his castle, the unloved child sacrifices themself for their family, and Chara finds themself tangled in a story that stretches back far before they were born.</p><p>Such is the way of things.</p><p> </p><p>[Another Beauty and the Beast AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Shrapnel of Good Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I know, it's another Beauty and the Beast one, but this one's going to be different, I promise. I mean, look at that cast list and also the fact that I decided not to go '[flower] and [flower]' for the title. 
> 
> This one is going to have suicide as a strong theme again. There are also going to be references to self-harm, and some amount of violence. More specific warnings will be in chapter descriptions.
> 
> Also, this isn't a very happy first chapter, but my intention is for it to get happier and healthier as the story goes on.

Chara wouldn’t have called themself particular, if asked. They had a wealth of flaws, but they didn’t think that that was one of them: instead, they would have said that they had principles. There were ways in which things should be done, ways to express respect and understanding of a given situation. There was the done thing, and even if they hated the tangle of conflicting social expectations, they thought that they were at least self-aware enough to know what it was in most situations.

In this one, it was quite simple. They had to die.

It was easy to stride vengefully through the woods when you weren’t carrying anything. Usually they had firewood or packages wrapped in paper and string, but this time they only had their clothes, the cloak on their back (worn and muddy at the hem), and a rose clutched in their right hand. The thorns had started to bite into their skin hours ago – now, there were just thin streaks of dried blood like cheap paint brushed down their wrist. It didn’t matter to them. They had worse scars on every limb, every part of their body as if you could cut them up into pieces and separate them into legs, arms, torso, head, and count the marks on each.

Perhaps they would have been more useful like that. In pieces. A commodity to be sold to whomever their family chose.

But that was over now: they had brought it all to an end when they’d seen the expressions turned on them that afternoon. Things had been difficult since their father’s ruin, and then it had got better once they’d moved to the countryside to escape unnecessary expense. Chara had actually thought they might have a chance at a happy life, without the complications of riches and balls and responsibilities. And then their father had gone back to their old city, riding on the meagre hope of salvation, and he’d come back with less than he’d left with: hope was swapped for a single rose and a promise of death.

He’d been stranded in a snowstorm, he’d said: lost in the woods, unable to push his weak horse any further, and a castle had opened up to him. There had been a night of luxury which had undoubtedly saved his life, and then a beast had come crashing down on him, demanding a life in return for the privilege. A rose was given as a sign of the man’s pledge.

When he’d told them, he, Chara, and their brother and sister had sat silently in the small lower room of the cottage. Chara’s sister had offered to go, and she had been dissuaded hurriedly. There had been more silence.

With the family’s unsaid decision hanging above their neck like a guillotine, Chara had snatched the rose and left. No one had stopped them. If someone had to be sacrificed to the beast that had spared their father’s life, it stood to reason it would be Chara.

There were ways in which things were done. This was one of them.

The wind was icy against their skin but to some extent they preferred that. It was numbing, calming, and it felt like everything went smooth from the cold. Their sister had always remarked sweetly on how easily they suffered the snow, how they were always the one to work outside in winter. So they were used to the signs: their fingers already frozen in clenched fists, their cheeks flushed like a last defence before the cold took them too. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. They were doing exactly what everyone had wanted for them and they were finally going to do something useful. They were going to die for the sake of someone else. They weren’t deluded enough to imagine that they’d be remembered fondly for it, but there was purpose in it.

Ignoring the shivers rattling down their spine, they gritted their teeth. Purpose. That was the point to all of this. Whatever death waited for them, there was a purpose to it, and by extension, to them.  

So they walked through the forest as if it was all they’d ever known. There weren’t any paths: nobody went this far in, too afraid of the rumours and the rotten magic that twisted all the trees into blackened, hobbled imitations of trunks and branches. There were no shrubs, no mushrooms, no birds, no moss, no grass, no flowers: only the skeletons of trees and the heavy canopy of leaves far above, blocking out the setting sun. Whether it had set already or not, Chara had no idea. That didn’t matter either: the castle would find them one way or another, because that was how magic castles worked. They had faith in that.

Bitterness and spite kept them walking long past exhaustion, long past the pain in their feet had numbed into nothing, long past the ache and rumble in their stomach had started to gnaw them from the inside out. Thirst didn’t bother them, and boredom had no place in a mind filled with rage. Just thinking about how their father and brother had leapt to stop their sister when she’d tried to leave was enough to churn their anger up again. They knew she was more useful than they were – she always had been more skilled, more sociable, more intelligent – but the hollowness of the silent farewell they had got rung in their ears.

Night came, identifiable only by the distance calls of owls and Chara’s own hazy concept of how much time had passed since they set out. Some time after they became aware of that, they saw lights through the blackness of the forest.

The frost-covered mud gave way to a gravelled path in front of giant gates, metalwork twisting like vines and studded with two brass handles that shone in the shape of flowers. When Chara stopped in front of the gate and the momentum of walking was brought to an end, pain raced to seep through every part of their body. Their heels felt ripped, there were shocks like the scrape of nails through their legs, fatigue held them in a vicelike grip, and they had to hang onto the icy metal, doubled over and gasping. The movement forced their numb fingers apart and that hurt too. They felt like laughing.

When they had more control over themself, they pushed the gate experimentally and found it swung open without even a squeak of hinges. So they walked, following a sandy path marked at regular intervals by lamps, leading to the front door of a castle so big it disappeared into the gloom. The path and the door were all they could see, and they couldn’t care less about the rest anyway. Squeezing the rose tighter into their palm to help ignore the rest of their body’s protests, they walked up to the door which, upon their first step on the stone staircase leading to it, opened obligingly.

Lamps flared into life when they walked inside and the door closed, leaving them with the crippling contrast between warmth and cold. It took a few moments to adjust, feeling their body thaw, and then they looked up to take in the castle properly.

Two staircases curved like a tulip’s petals, leading to a second, and then a third and a fourth floor towering above the entrance hall. A chandelier hung between them in the shape of a resting spider, if spiders were made of candles and hundreds of crystal shards that glittered in the light. The tiled floor was white with irregular streaks of black, leading between the two staircases to what looked like a long corridor in pleasingly warm brown wood, lit up by more candles.

They wondered if they were supposed to be impressed. They only felt impatience, so they walked onwards.

Most of the doors were locked, and those that weren’t, were deserted, the candles inside only bursting into life a few moments after they opened the door. They searched despite their aches for perhaps twenty minutes before they came to the last door in the corridor, which opened to a dining room. At least, they assumed that’s what it was. The room itself could have contained the entirety of the cottage they’d been living in after their family’s bankruptcy, and there was an enormous table in the middle of it. The walls were covered in dark paper with gold tracings glinting in the light of candles and the massive fireplace that crackled in one wall, carefully removed from the table to save potential guests from the heat.

The table itself had only one chair, at the end closest to Chara. They stared at it, at the mountains of food on silver dishes waiting for their appraisal. With the rose still clenched in their fist, they turned on their heel and slammed the door behind them.

It was a disgrace. Even if, for some unfathomable reason, that food _had_ been laid out for them, they didn’t want it. Even if their stomach felt empty enough to close up on itself, they didn’t want it. They had come here to die, and they would _not_ play around at living. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work, so they had to explore some more. Clearly, because they hadn’t been subject to enough indignity in their eighteen years of life, they had to seek out their killer by themself. And they would.

Slamming their feet down on beautifully-patterned carpet and gleaming floorboards alike, they marched through the house. Up staircases with gracefully-carved banisters, through corridors that felt like caves inlaid with gold and wooden panelling, they checked every door available to them and found nothing at all. Drawing rooms, studies, guest rooms, pantries, storage cupboards, all empty of any signs of life. There was no stuffiness or dust, but there was no smell of living occupants either. It was exactly as Chara’s father had said, and yet was missing one particular playing piece.

It was unbearable.

Where was the beast? Why wasn’t it coming for them? There were ways in which things were done, and it felt like time was running out for this one. They had to stay angry and ready to die with a bitter smile.

Or was it torture they were being prepared for? Would the beast take its time? They liked that idea less, but as long as it all led to death, they couldn’t see that it made much difference.

With steadily slowing steps, they stomped down the stairs of a tower that had held nothing but old paintings, scrolls and parchment. They’d already searched the entirety of the wing that led to it, so they limped back to the main hall and stopped. There were more wings to search, more floors to go through, but their feet stopped all the same. They were far beyond the end of their strength. Dragging their legs back to work was an effort of pure determination.

They made their way to a second floor room that looked the type of space a guest might use for entertaining, with a connecting door to the bedroom. The curtains, twice as tall as Chara themself, were drawn over the windows, and the candles flickered into life when the door opened, casting a bright glow over dark, polished wood. Chara stood in front of the low table between two lounging chairs and they paused.

After a breath, they raised their hand high above their head and slammed the rose onto the table as hard as they could. A scream of pain ripped from their throat when their shallow cuts reopened, and then they were screaming, screeching, wailing, howling with everything they’d stitched up into themself.

It wasn’t _fair_! They’d known it wasn’t fair: they knew the world had no obligation to be fair to them and that it certainly had no interest in it, but this was too much. Whatever their family had thought of them, they’d had a _life_! They’d enjoyed things: hours hidden away reading, the blossoming of new flowers, the smell of the house on baking day and the prospect of helping their sister if she wanted them, talking to the sardonic old witch on the edge of the village, teaching themself to fish in the stream despite their brother telling them it was useless. There were so many things they’d enjoyed, and they’d given them up to play the ‘good daughter’ their father wanted, and it wasn’t working! They were supposed to die and nothing was _happening_.

Bile rising in their throat rubbed raw from screams, they remembered the single cut-off word their sister had tried to speak as they’d left the house for the last time. There had been nothing else.

It became clear to them that nothing they had ever done had been worth anything.

Fingernails scraping down the walls, they ripped the thin paper covering in stuttering gashes. They threw over the chairs, smashing the glass that covered the bookshelves. They kicked the linenfold wood panelling, relishing how it hurt, roaring for more pain. They wanted to rip themself to shreds.

What else were they good for?

The beast hadn’t come: it had pitied them, it had patronised them, it had pretended to be kind to them with food and light and warmth when all it wanted was their death. It could have it! It could kill them: they _wanted_ it to! They just wanted things to go the way they should: they wanted to die in the way they’d chosen!

“What the _fuck_ are you waiting for?!” they shrieked, ripping into the embroidered covering of a pillow. “I’m not going anywhere! You’re welcome at any time, so come and hold up your end of the deal! I won’t even put up a fight: I’m so _tired_.”

There were hate-filled sobs mixed in with the harsh scratch of their voice, choking them. They fell to hands and knees, squeezing their eyes together so tightly that white spots burst and danced in front of their eyelids.

They didn’t matter at all, and it was becoming hard to bear with each passing minute in which the beast didn’t come to finish them.

Some time after they had stopped crying, a feeling that they were being watched descended on them, their nerves tautening and their airway going tight. There was no sound – no ceremony or warning. But they could feel it, so they raised their head, getting to their feet with their back to the door. There were no reflective surfaces in front of them: they noticed this with some amount of dismay, in spite of the swirl of self-loathing thick in their throat. They didn’t rub their eyes dry or click a smile into place. This was what they had been waiting for, so they just turned.

The beast was in the doorway. Chara had been expecting it: they’d thought they’d prepared themself enough. They hadn’t.

It towered, easily their height and half again with its back hunched over. Horns grew from its skull like coils of birch skin immortalised in chipped stone. It had clothes over its massive, hulking limbs – the beginnings of a suit, with a cravat and a blue waistcoat decorated in silver chains. There were no shoes that could cover its claws, though: they were like curling knives in its feet. Its thick fur was grubby white, and perhaps that was why its eyes were so shocking: they were totally black, set into the deep hollows of its skull.

Chara couldn’t breathe for a second. The second rolled into two, three, then more and more until they were suffocating in the face of this creature, this thing that had toyed with them and had finally come to kill them.

Death, they would face willingly. But they had never promised to be entirely fearless.

Before they had a grasp on what was happening, the beast spoke, concern flooding its face. “Are you…are you the one that man promised?”

It – but no, that would be doing him a disservice, they realised – spoke with a lighter voice than one would expect from his appearance. It didn’t quite fit him. The oversized teeth protruding jaggedly from his mouth did.

“I’m sorry?” Chara asked, their own voice strangled until it was barely audible.

The beast stayed on the other side of the door, clearly hesitating. They couldn’t understand: why wasn’t it killing them?

“The man who came here the other day. You know him, don’t you? That’s why you’re here. Isn’t it?”

“Y-yes,” they croaked. It felt as if they couldn’t drag their gaze from him: from the two incisors jutting out of his top jaw, or the unforgiving darkness of his eyes.

And then he smiled. “I’m glad! I thought he was going to go back on his promise. I wouldn’t even have asked him to bring someone back, it’s just that no one ever comes here and he _did_ steal from me so I thought that I had the right to ask something of him in return, you know?”

“What?”

The beast blinked, the gesture curiously innocent on a face that looked more built for bloodlust. “What’s wrong? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“No, you…” They clenched their hands again, almost gasping when their fingers dug into the cuts. “You’re supposed to kill me.”

“What?”

“That’s why I’m here!” they shouted, picking up steam and using it as the only strength they had. “You saved my father’s life and demanded another life in return, so that’s why I’m here! You’re supposed to kill me and leave my family alone! That’s the deal!”

It was dawning on them that something was wrong, as the beast was looking more confused and less beastlike with each passing second. Still, he didn’t take a single step forwards into the room. They wanted to go to him, to bait him into it, to lure him into ripping them apart.

“That’s not what happened,” he said in a restrained voice. “I…I don’t have any control over it: the castle let him in, and fed him and gave him everything he needed for his horse and so on. I just stayed out of the way. And then he picked a rose when he was leaving, and that…” He looked away. “I don’t like being stolen from, that’s all. So I asked him why he took it and he said it was for his daughter, and he started talking about her beauty and skills, and how he just wanted to do something nice for her, so I said he could go if he sent her back to stay with me. I didn’t…I didn’t say anything about killing.”

Chara’s mouth felt dry. What should have been a relief sunk into them like poison, polluting their blood and breath until they felt stripped to the bone. “ _What?_ ”

“Did you…did you really come here thinking I’d kill you?”

“He said that! He didn’t say anything about him stealing, he just said you gave him the rose and threatened his life!”

“That’s not what happened,” the beast sniffed almost childishly. It would have been funny in any other circumstances. “But this is good news, isn’t it? You should be relieved: there were some misunderstandings, but he clearly loves you a lot, and-”

“He doesn’t!” They screamed it at the floor, eyes wide and stinging.

Silenced, the beast waited for them.

“I’m not his daughter: I’m not the one he was talking about! That’s my sister! When she suggested she give up her life for his, he stopped her, he and my brother both. They didn’t even _look_ at me when I went. I came here to die, do you get that? I’m supposed to die because that’s all I’m fucking good for! And now it’s all a misunderstanding? Am I supposed to just go waltzing back to them, _knowing_ that they don’t care about me at all?!”

“You can’t…actually leave.” He seemed sheepish in the face of their snarls.

Shock held them still for a second, and then a smile pushed its way to their lips and they spread their arms wide, laughing. “Oh, that’s just fine, isn’t it? I can’t leave. I’m here with a beast who doesn’t even want my death-”

“Why are you angry about that?” he asked, the edge of a growl in his voice.

“Because there’s no point in me living if I can’t die for something! This is all I’m good for and you’re robbing it from me!”

“I haven’t done anything!” He raised himself up, finally walking in through the doors to stand in front of them so they had to tilt their neck back to meet his eyes. “I’ve shown you nothing but kindness so don’t you _dare_ presume to blame me!”

They stiffened, their smile pushing their cheeks up until it hurt. His anger pinned them in place, but it wasn’t from fear. Not fear of him, at any rate. Not fear of a beast.

The silence calcified around the two of them and Chara became aware of themself. There wasn’t a single part of their body that didn’t hurt, and they could feel the shattered remains of their resolve solidifying in the pit of their gut. It had all been useless. They weren’t wanted, and they couldn’t go back regardless. Their father had chosen their sister above them in every way, in the most shameless way, believing that they would die. He had not stopped them from leaving.

They laughed.

It sprung from them, leaving their eyes full of tears and their chest convulsing. Exhaustion sapped strength from their very bones, hunger sucked it from their marrow, and they sunk to their knees, hands pulling down the skin of their face.

They had done everything they could for their family, and it hadn’t been enough.

They had done everything they could to die a worthwhile death, and it hadn’t been enough.

They were the decaying remains of good intentions. They were nothing, and it was so clear to them that they couldn’t help but laugh.

The beast backed away from them. “W-what’s wrong? This…this isn’t normal for humans, is it?”

No, it wasn’t. How many times had they been told that?

He bent to their level and even with fingers over their eyes, shaking, they could see how much of an effort it was for him. His hands, twice the size of their head, hovered at the sides of their shoulders for a few seconds, claws bared, as if he wanted to hold them. There was nowhere they could run. When the pads of one palm touched their skin through the thin cloth of their shirt, they pushed back with their legs as hard as they could, screaming “ _Don’t touch me!_ ”

The beast didn’t move for a second. Then he straightened up until he was standing. Chara buried their head in their knees, not laughing anymore. They wanted to curl up so tightly that they disappeared.

“Why can’t you calm down?” he said, without any indication he was speaking to them except by grace of the fact that they were in the same room. Then his voice grew more focussed. Angrier. “Why are you being like this? If you’re just going to laugh and scream, I wish your sister had come instead of you after all!”

The sound of claws clattering on wood echoed in the room as he left.

Chara felt empty. Drained of everything, as if they were just a shell for emotions they had never wanted. Their back was aching now too: in their hurry to get away from him, they’d thrust their spine into the edge of the table.

It took a long time before they managed to get to their feet. They felt very distant from themself, and it was that which kept them moving, walking – if it could be called walking – down the hall. They had no plan. They wanted to sleep. They didn’t want to have to think about anything, least of all how badly they’d failed.

A door opened when they were a few paces from it, and they walked into the room. The candles were already lit, there was a basin of steaming water on the table, and a tray of food under silver covers. The door closed behind them and the covers of the bed opened invitingly.

There was no point to any of it, but Chara managed to force themself to drink some of the water left out for them. Then they slipped off their shoes and went to the basin of water, resting their hands in it and embracing the sting. Too listless to bother with washing anything else, they pulled their dripping hands out of the water and went to the glass doors on the other side of the room. There was something that looked like a balcony beyond, but they did nothing more than glance at the lamp-lit gardens below.

The beast was there, crouching in front of a flower bed that held only one flower, curiously enough. The only lamps lit were those directly around him so Chara couldn’t see much more, but from the angle they were at, it looked like he was speaking.

It didn’t concern them. They should even have been there. They shouldn’t even have been alive: there was no reason for them to be.

With that thought held in their chest, they crawled into the freshly-laundered sheets and fell asleep.


	2. Your Cage of Jade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise a decent release schedule, but I wanted to get this one out quickly because this introduces the actual plot.
> 
> Warnings: references to self-harm and eating difficulties, and ever-present suicide idealisation/suicidal thoughts

The morning came in uncomfortable stops and starts. The first time Chara woke up, the barest glimmers of light were pushing through the curtains (which they hadn’t closed: they knew they hadn’t). They forced their eyes open long enough to decide that they shouldn’t have, and then went back to sleep.

It was more difficult the second and third times, as they became steadily more aware of the patchwork of aches that was their body. No matter how they turned, nothing was comfortable. A few times, they considered getting up to do something for their clawing hunger, but each time they decided against it. There wasn’t any point, anyway. It was easier to stay wrapped in the hazy clutches of sleep and pretend that the world was a mild suggestion rather than an undeniable reality.

Perhaps, if they slept long enough, they would sink into the sheets and disappear. That might be nice, they thought. The bed still smelt faintly of flowers.

The fourth time they woke up, the curtains were open. It was blinding and they hated it. There was the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room and they hated that too: the sound irritated them, winding them up tighter and tighter until they were too conscious to go back to sleep, which was a tragedy in and of itself. What was the point? There weren’t any reasons to get up.

Time dripped over them like syrup, spiked with the clock’s never-ending reminders that it existed. At home, they would have been up hours earlier. At home, they would have helped with breakfast, collected laundry, started repairing whatever there was to be sewn up or darned, brought in firewood, shovelled snow off the path in front of the cottage: anything. There were always so many things to be done, so they had to do them.

As if mocking them, the bedcovers straightened themselves independently of Chara’s movements, sheets politely un-rumpling and pillows plumping up.

They endured this for some minutes, and then they got up, pushing their legs over the side of the bed – so high that their feet didn’t touch the ground – and stared at the creased material of the skirt they hadn’t bothered to take off the night before. It was a long time before they managed to push themself off the mattress and onto the floor, and even then they felt so dizzy that they had to hang onto the bedposts as they walked slowly to the table opposite the end of the bed. A new tray of food was waiting for them, with a new basin of water. Or perhaps it was the same and had simply been heated up again. They didn’t care. They went through the movements of washing their face and hands, wincing as the scabs on their palm protested. Their hair was a mess, and they knew they’d feel better if they washed properly, but they didn’t. They stared into space instead.

When they turned around, the bed was remade perfectly and clothes were laid out on it. They took one look at the impractical mass of skirts and turned back to the table, pouring a cup of water with shaking hands. There were splashes on the silver tray when they did manage to bring the water to their mouth and drink.

They went to the door next, only to find it locked. There was a clinking sound from behind them, and they turned to see the plate-covers removed and piled up carefully on one side of the table. The clothes on the bed had been changed, too: fawn trousers, a well-ironed black shirt, a dark red waistcoat, and white gloves shining softly with the sheen of silk.

There didn’t seem much point to anything, but they knew orders when they saw them. They knew better than to be spitefully ungrateful.

It took a long time for them to push themself into the clothes and force food down their blocked-up throat. The sun looked to be well past its zenith when they finally left the room and started to walk down the carpeted corridor, marginally less light-headed. When they passed the room they’d destroyed the night before, it showed no signs of ever having been touched.

Once they got to the main staircase, they weren’t sure what to do, but fortunately it was decided for them with the clatter of footsteps on the stairs coming from the floor above. They turned.

The beast was hunched, as if ashamed of his own stature. It seemed funny, somehow, but Chara supposed he’d been just as careful the night before. They didn’t really care. They didn’t particularly want to speak to him either, but it didn’t look as if they’d be getting that choice because he walked to meet them, standing just far enough away that they didn’t have to strain their neck to look him in the eyes.

“I, uh…Did you sleep well?”

“No.” It annoyed them: the clash between his voice and his body, the fact that he would talk to them at all after what he’d said. He annoyed them.

“The castle should have looked after you.”

“It did.”

He frowned, his brows pushing down like a threat. And then, sulkily, “You don’t have to be like that, you know.”

“Don’t I? Thank you for telling me.”

“Look, I’m sorry for what I said last night.” He lifted his hands and very almost rolled his eyes in clear despair at how _difficult_ they were being. “It was rude and you were upset and I shouldn’t have done it. I’m _sorry_. Now, if you’ll let the past be the past, I’d be happy to explain everything to you, or you can continue to be peevish.”

They turned on their heel and started to walk up the stairs before he managed to call out after them.

“Wait, I didn’t mean it like that!”

They kept walking, dragging their feet up each step so every time their boots hit the marble, the sound rang out in the emptiness of the main stairwell.

“Stop! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put it like that! I want us to get along, I really do, I’m just having trouble understanding you.”

It was the closest thing to a genuine apology they thought they’d get, and they had no idea what they were supposed to do with themself anyway, so they stopped. There was a small sigh of relief from behind them and they almost started to walk away again. Curious, really: they were used to being treated like the superfluous one, the one to tread around very carefully to make sure they didn’t shatter and stab everyone around them with the pieces, but they didn’t want to put up with it from him.

Not that they held any illusions of their own courage in the face of anger. If he slipped from pettiness into rage again, they knew all too well how quickly their standards for self-respect would drop.

So they turned and walked back down the stairs. They didn’t quite have the energy to stitch on a smile.

The beast watched them until they were by him, and then he led them down the next flight of stairs. His face seemed wiped of emotion, but Chara didn’t care enough to look up and check.

“You look nice in those clothes,” he said presently, halfway down.

They stared very firmly ahead at the wall-hanging draped over the stone in front of the stairs. It seemed to depict a castle wrapped in greenery. How odd.

The beast cleared his throat. “Was that wrong? Shouldn’t I have said that?”

“You promised me an explanation.” They steered the conversation away from pleasantries.

He was looking at them and they were resolutely not looking at him. Eventually he said, sourly, “I did. Would you like that before or after introductions?”

A thorn of guilt stabbed them. “I’m sorry. I’m Chara.”

He nodded, and, as they reached the next floor, he said, “I’m Asriel. I’m the crown prince.” This, he said with some degree of pride. Chara opted to ignore it. They didn’t reply at all, instead mulling over the whispers of legendary princes and castles they’d caught back in the village, when the older villagers hadn’t been cautious enough, and the stories they’d heard from the village witch when they’d subsequently asked.

Asriel waited long enough to make sure they wouldn’t say anything else, and then he sighed a little. “This castle’s cursed. It’s been that way for a few hundred years, actually. This whole forest, and the land on the other side, used to be a country, and people were doing just fine except for occasional disputes over territory with the neighbouring countries. And then some mages from those very countries decided to curse an entire people because we weren’t strong enough to fight back. Or no, it wasn’t strength we lacked. It was will: why would we fight?”

He laughed bitterly as they reached the first floor, turning to walk down the corridor leading to the dining room. When he spoke again, there was something haughty in his voice. “So the entire kingdom was cursed. Lands turned to forest, and only this castle remained. Slowly, very slowly, the people were felled by the curse and put into sleep. It took a long time. My parents, the king and queen, were the last to go, and that happened when I was still a child. The castle’s looked after me since, but otherwise I’m tied to it. I’ll die if I leave.”

Chara looked at their feet, wondering idly how much longer they’d be able to jog along to his pace before the aches from the previous day made it impossible. “How do you know all of that if you were a child when your parents…left?”

Asriel paused. “The castle let me know. There are records: I read those. Anyway, that’s how it is,” he went on hastily. “My people are in stasis and I’m the one left to save them.” He chuckled and it came out like a growl from between his teeth. “I’m the prince of this world’s future.”

Chara didn’t grace that with a reply. His story fit with the smothered history they’d heard: a thriving kingdom had disappeared, and the village they lived – or had lived – in was one of many that had sprung up around the forest that was said to have been its heart. Those villages virtually never talked about the land they built and lived on: it was passed around in whispers, but since centuries had passed with no sign of the kingdom coming back, even those had faded out. If it hadn’t been for the witch on the outskirts of town, Chara would never have heard anything substantial.

His story had no inconsistencies on that front, but there were gaps.

“Where’s your people?”

He looked at them as he pushed open the dining room doors. “Sleeping, I told you.”

“Where?”

“Oh. Um, humans can’t see them until the curse is broken. So I can’t show them to you.”

“Humans?” They weren’t sure why the specificity surprised them.

“Oh,” he said again, the sound strangely meek in jaws that could have ripped the head from their shoulders. They walked the length of the table to get to a door on the other side. “We aren’t human. I mean, I got cursed too, so this isn’t how I should look, but we’re monsters. That’s part of the reason the humans wanted rid of us.”

The frankness of it all was more damning than resentment would have been. It was a history he’d grown up with: it was normality, to him. The two of them walked through into the next room.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry people like me,” they spat the words, “did that to you. No one from my village even seemed to remember what happened to you.” They clenched their fists, lowering their head until their hair covered most of their field of vision: the room became polished wooden floorboards and the bottom halves of empty painted vases.

“You don’t really need to be sorry.” He shrugged. “Besides, I’m destined to save everyone. It’s not like it’s permanent.”

He led them to another door and they purposefully stayed behind him, annoyance roiling in their gut. Flippancy wasn’t frankness, and it stung. They thought they might be forgiven their sourness given the excitement of the day before, but they also knew that there was hardly precedent for that sort of forgiveness. The sort that involved them.

Another thing they knew: his radiant pride as he flaunted his reason to exist, his destiny, stirred up hatred in them. They didn’t feel mature enough to brush it away.

When the door opened, they both walked out into a set of marble arches – carved into swirls and the suggestion of leaves – that led to yet more stairs and then the gardens. They were overwhelmingly green. Asriel spoke, catching Chara’s attention, before they could consider this.

“Is that enough explanation for you?”

It barely scratched the surface: he couldn’t be serious, but they saw no hint of a joke in his expression, only exasperation. So they nodded. Who knew what exasperation could blossom into, given his temperament?

“Have you been living alone all this time?”

He seemed to preen at the chance to answer a question. “I’ve had the castle looking after me, and the books and things my parents left. And there’s a mirror in one of the upper towers: it shows some of the human villages around here, so it’s not as if I’ve been totally disconnected from the world.”

It seemed pointless to argue. They couldn’t truthfully say they cared anyway. The story was touching, the truth of it harrowing, but he personally did nothing to inspire their sympathy. They turned their eyes back to the gardens: an army of manicured hedges and pleasantly-trimmed lawns, grey paths and very little else. Occasionally a pinprick of colour, as if the gardener – if there had ever even been one – had only seen fit to plant one seed for every bed of flowers. Chara opened their mouth, rolling a question around in their mind long enough for their tongue to dry up in the chilled winter air.

Finally, they decided they wanted to know more than they valued the reprieve from him. “Why can’t I leave?”

“Why would you want to leave?” He seemed genuinely confused.

Shifting their weight and wincing at the delightful discovery that their other foot was in worse condition, they avoided the question and did not look at him.

“I mean…why would you want to?” he said, putting his hands together and clacking the claws nervously, as if knitting the words in a way that wouldn’t leave them ready to unravel. “From what happened last night, I got the impression that your family hasn’t exactly been the best to you. Why would you want to go back to that? Why would you prefer that to here?”

It was the difference between responsibility and void; habits and the unknown. Of course he wouldn’t understand. “That didn’t answer my question.”

He seemed to be angling for eye contact they wouldn’t give him. “Then…you can’t. There was a pledge: your father promised that he would give a life in return for that rose. You came. The castle won’t let you go now: your life is tied to it, as mine is. That’s how things work.”

It felt like a distant problem, something they didn’t need to deal with personally. They did look up at him, though. He was leaning against the side of an arch, fur just some shades darker than the stone. Had his ears not been long and drooping, Chara got the impression they would have perked up when he noticed he was being looked at.

They grinned without any mirth at all. “A rose for my life. That sounds about right.”

He frowned. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want company, that’s really all. You’re not going to come to any harm here.”

“More’s the pity.” It felt like an unimaginable drag to start walking again, but they somehow did it, turning to the door and only stopping to ask, coldly, “Was there anything else you wanted from me?”

They didn’t turn to look at him, and his voice sounded pained. “Where are you going now?”

To curl into the bed they’d slept in; to forget they existed; to find something sharp and carve the reminders of their own uselessness into their body until they were tired enough to sleep. “To explore.”

Asriel nodded without much sincerity, and they left.

 

Dinner was a spectacularly awkward affair, and Chara thoroughly resented the string of doors that had opened loudly and locked behind them to usher them down to eat. In an effort to be pleasant, they emulated their sister. It didn’t work. Smiles wouldn’t come naturally, conversation wouldn’t come smoothly, and they were left to hunch over a plate that kept being refilled against their wishes with food that was undoubtedly delicious but which they could barely taste.

The hall was lit up by more candles than it probably needed, lined up along the whole length of the table and the walls, despite the fact that Chara and Asriel were both sitting at only one end. Exquisitely curved glass vases were interspersed between the candles on the spotless tablecloth, some holding clear water and some empty. The fire was lit in the fireplace, Asriel sat on a chair that somehow contained him, and there was an abundance of food before Chara.

It was salt in the wound that Asriel didn’t eat: instead, he gave nervous laughter and the excuse that his mouth didn’t let him eat in a way that would be acceptable in company. They didn’t care about that. They cared that he watched them, and every mouthful felt like it solidified the shame on their shoulders.

Escape came too late to soothe their hurt pride – already tattered – and after excusing themself in the strongest terms they could, they tramped bitterly up the staircase back to the room they’d adopted as theirs. Perhaps the bitterness had never left: perhaps that was just who they were now. Their hard work wasn’t wanted (they weren’t wanted), so they had nothing left but bitterness and the constant physical pain of their body. That was all they were.

Or maybe, they reflected with some amusement, that was just their pathetic way of pretending they weren’t human. Split themself into pieces and strip away their humanity, except that that could never work. They couldn’t get away that easily, and they didn’t really expect to either. That was how things worked: they knew that well enough. You had to face your problems rather than run away or dissolve into the nearest body of water. You weren’t supposed to live in denial.

With that on their mind, they slunk up the stairs to collapse into bed and hopefully fall into unconsciousness.

It worked for a few hours, but they woke up too hot and irredeemably uncomfortable at some point in the night. Kicking the covers didn’t work, even though the sheets stayed politely crumpled underneath their feet, and the perfectly-stuffed mattress felt like it was poking into their every bone. They got up, panting.

The coolness of the windows beckoned them and they padded over on feet that still felt leaden, pushing back the curtains and then letting them fall over their body so they were cocooned between heavy cloth and glass. The moon was bright, the lamps unlit. They could just see the edge of the main gardens, and there was something glinting from behind a hedge. For a few moments, they took it for a reflection on the condensation-wet window.

It wasn’t. It was a flower, they realised. It took a few blinks to be sure, but they were certain it was a flower, in the same place Asriel had been the night before. A single lamp was lit over it.

And that should have been that: they should have allowed apathy to swamp them again and go back to sleep. Instead, they pulled on their boots and a heavy frock coat they found lying, folded, on the bed, and went down to the gardens.

It wasn’t anything they could explain. The impulse fluttered into their chest and took hold, forcing their legs to walk forwards, down the stairs, along the corridor, through the dining hall and into the gardens. Lamps burst into life as they passed by, just a few milliseconds too late to light their way, and they hurried down the stone steps onto dew-slick grass and down into the hedges.

Empty flower beds sat like blankets of frosty soil, with only the occasional stem or flower poking out. Never more than one of each type. It seemed in bad taste, somehow, but that wasn’t where Chara’s interest lay. They were reeled in like a fish jumping and gasping for air: running on legs that couldn’t take it, they went straight to the flower they’d seen from their window.

It stood proudly, alone in its bed. A tall stem with layers of leaves like crowns, and a single white lily gleaming above. It was at the very edge of the garden, before the path led out to endless lawns that slowly sunk into wild grass. Chara looked at it, out of breath, trying to understand the pull they were still hooked by.

Bending their knees, they cupped the flower with a shaking hand, barely feeling the softness of the petals because their skin was so cold. The pull was still there, but they didn’t know what to do to satisfy it. It was a feeling they were more or less used to: constantly wanting, never being able to satisfy themself. As if they’d never be happy, since their towering standards would never let them. It was enough to make you laugh, really.

They were tired. It was so late, so dark, so cold, and they didn’t want to be out in the garden. It didn’t really matter either way – they could freeze and it wouldn’t matter – but it felt so pointless to have been called out for this, for a single flower.

“I’m going back,” they said firmly, to no one in particular. “I don’t care what you called me for: I’m going back.”

“Oh my!”

Chara’s fingers stiffened around the petals at the soft sound of a woman’s voice. There had been no footfall, no tell-tale rustles. Just the voice.

“Goodness,” it came again. “I do not believe we have met.”

“No,” Chara agreed, still paralysed in place.

“You are shaking, my child. Did you not mean to wake me? Or perhaps it is too cold for you? You should not push yourself: if you go back to the castle, there will be warm clothes waiting for you.”

It seemed a laughable thing to be concerned about, given the situation, so Chara shook their head. “Where are you?”

“I? I am right in front of you, am I not?” A warm laugh. Gentle.

“The flower.”

“Indeed,” her voice was still warm with the lingering laughter. “Then you must really not have intended to wake me. And, I must confess, I did not expect to be woken by you either, my child. You are the first, aside from my son.”

Things clicked into place and Chara let their hand drop. “You’re the queen, aren’t you?”

The flower’s petals fluttered in the breeze, almost like a nod. “I was. I may still be – who can say? I am not sure this can be truthfully called a kingdom anymore.” Her tone was acerbic, but she corrected it. “Then you have heard the story from Asriel? I am glad he told you. I was not sure he would. He is so nervous, you know, and so unused to strangers. He came to tell me of your arrival last night and I do not believe I have ever seen him so distressed. But he did not tell me your name.”

“Chara,” they blurted out. Their legs were still bent, as if to be at the same level as the lily.

“Greetings, Chara,” she said with an audible smile. “I am Toriel, and it is a pleasure to meet you. I cannot offer you anything in the way of hospitality, but will you not sit? I would hate to think of you straining yourself.”

Obediently, they sat down. There must have been the beginnings of frost on the ground: it melted into their trousers.

“I feel I must apologise,” Toriel said. “Asriel should not have brought you here without your consent. It was not out of bad intentions, and he is ignorant to the ways in which things work in many cases, but to imprison a person here is unforgivable. I am sorry.”

It would have meant more if he himself had said it but Chara didn’t mention that. They bent their head and mumbled something in way of acknowledgement.

“Has he been good to you, at least? And the castle too?”

“He’s been…He’s trying.” They put it in the nicest way they could before changing the subject. “But he didn’t say anything about…this. About you being a flower. And you and he both refer to the castle as if it’s a person. And he told me I couldn’t leave, but he wouldn’t give any real reason beyond a pledge.” They didn’t phrase it as a question, because they realised halfway through that it could easily be construed as nosiness: that she might get irritated.

She didn’t. “Oh, he has not done a very good job, has he? Very well. I will gladly answer any questions you might have, to the best of my abilities. It is the least I can do. And the most, in this form.” A small laugh. “Perhaps I ought to start with how this began.

“I suppose what it amounts to is nothing altogether too astonishing. We were disliked by the neighbouring humans, and there were many disputes on the borders. For years, we had been defending ourselves, but humans are strong. No amount of shrewdness could save us, or so I thought. In the end, it was not shrewdness that we needed: the attack we anticipated never came, and instead we were cursed. An entire country, cursed by the strongest mages the humans could collect together, all using blood magic.” She seemed as if she would shake her head, were she able to. “It was an atrocity we could not have foreseen.

“The curse came upon us slowly, as the lands we lived on grew to forests, trees sprouting to their full height within weeks. We clustered here, at the capital, but the forest grew and grew, and soon this castle was the last place left untouched. And then the curse began to take hold of us. One by one, we began to fall down. No one knew what was happening: every day, more people fell to dust. It was a time of turmoil. My husband, Asgore, and I could do nothing; our chief scientist could do nothing. We were helpless. Amidst the panic, flowers began to grow from the dust our people left behind.

“In short, our souls had been implanted into seeds. I do not know how or why, but perhaps that was simply part of the curse. Blood magic to reduce a country to dust and flowers. Those of us who remained planted the fallen in the castle gardens, tended to them, and slowly fell ourselves. It took centuries, and during all that time we did not dare send out messengers to the lands around us for help. They had done this to us, after all. From occasional excursions, we learnt that the forest had receded until it encaged only us, and that humans had retaken the land. What did that matter? There was nothing we could do against the human mages’ magic. I was the second to last to fall, and by that time hope was all but non-existent. We had no solution. All I knew was that my husband would fall, as would my son, and that would be that.”

She laughed lightly, as if it would disperse the ambiance that clung to them in the winter night. “You might thus imagine my surprise when I found myself woken up in this form some time later. I found that I cannot speak of my own accord – none of us can, Asriel tells me – but I can be woken up. And so, for years, Asriel has been coming down to talk to me whenever he needs to. It has been dreadful, not being there for him except in voice. He was very young when I fell, and I cannot imagine that Asgore fell much longer after that. If it had not been for the castle taking on the magic of the curse and taking care of him, I do not think he would have survived.” She sighed.

“As for the curse, I know very little of it. When one lives in stasis, only woken up to be talked to, it becomes difficult to hypothesise. Asriel is the only one who can do anything, now. From what he tells me, there is a single way to break it, and though he has not yet found it, he seems determined. He is the bearer of all our hopes and dreams.” She said it with some measure of sadness.

Chara couldn’t think of anything to say. They had questions, but not the courage to voice them. Their hands were in their lap, rubbing together in the faint hope that they might warm up that way.

The story touched them. Guilt struck them. They didn’t want to think that the guilt overpowered the sympathy.

“My child, are you alright? Are you still there?”

They started. “I’m sorry: I was thinking. Can’t you see me?”

“I am afraid not. But I am glad to hear you are still here. I would not like to think I had bored you.”

“You didn’t!”

“Ah, but these are only an old woman’s ramblings. I am sure they must not mean much to you. Is there anything else you would like to ask, perhaps? I regret to say I cannot tell you how to leave this place: my son was not lying when he said you cannot. The castle ties us all together, to the best of its abilities.”

Chara lowered their eyes: a pointless gesture. “Is that certain? How do you know?”

“I have, or I had some measure of magic myself. I can sense that much. The curse has woven itself into the castle. I am not surprised: that is what one must expect, from blood magic.”

They took the information in, tried to process it. “I…tonight, I felt a pull towards you. Did you do that? Or do you think it was the castle again?”

“I had no hand in it, my child. I would assume it to be the castle’s doing. I wonder what it is up to.” She sounded pleased

Chara wondered too, but they bit their lip and drowned their curiosity. It didn’t matter. They shouldn’t be bothering her with so many questions anyway.

“I dare say this has been a great deal to take in all at once,” Toriel said gently. “It is late, is it not? Perhaps you would do well to get some rest. It would not do to tire yourself out, two nights in a row.”

The words sunk into Chara’s stomach like stones. Was that a tactful reprimand? How much did she know? It shouldn’t matter, but it did. They didn’t want people to know, if they could help it. It was different if it was only one dislikeable beast, but they knew that they weren’t behaving well, and the idea of others knowing too was enough to burn them with shame.

So they nodded and, remembering that Toriel couldn’t see it, said, “You’re right. I should…I should sleep. But thank you. Thank you for trusting me with this story.”

“It was my pleasure, Chara.” She seemed to be treating them with the utmost care. It was something they were used to, and the memories set them on edge. “I will tell Asriel to explain things _properly_ next time.”

“Oh no, don’t, please!” They reached out a hand ineffectually. “I…I’d prefer he didn’t know that I’ve talked to you.” They didn’t want to share anything with him, not more than they had to. And if he hadn’t told them about the flowers, it felt like an invasion of something he held dear.

“Whyever would you prefer that?” Confusion changed to haste as she went on, “Oh, but I am not criticising your judgement: if that is what you feel comfortable with, I will not mention it. And you are welcome to come and talk to me whenever you might need to. I would be delighted to help you. And, Chara, if I might ask you something…please take care of him as best you can. I am sure he is trying to do the same for you. He is not bad at heart.”

A mother’s love would wipe away many flaws, Chara thought, and mentally slapped themself for it. “I will.”

“Thank you,” she said in a voice sweetened by a smile. “I wish you luck, and I hope you are happy here.”

Foolish wishes: how were they supposed to be happy? They were completely useless. But they nodded and thanked her again, getting up on stiff legs and turning towards the castle. Their chest felt funny. She’d had no business being so gentle with them. It was just a sign that she was worried they’d break down in front of her. It was nothing more than that: she was just being cautious, trying to avoid trouble.

Being handled with kid gloves and exasperated disdain was something they were used to. That was how things were done, and that was why they shouldn’t have gotten so upset the night before. Cursing their mistake, and trying to concentrate instead on what Toriel had told them, they walked back through the gardens.

There were warm clothes folded neatly by the door when they got inside, as Toriel had said there would be. Chara ignored them, but they nodded briefly in thanks. Perhaps the castle would be able to tell. Their head was reeling, but with information rather than unwelcome thoughts, for once. A pleasant surprise.

Making their way back to their bedroom, they found themself stopping at the room they’d first met Asriel in. The candles were lit and the door was open, one of the only two open doors in the entire passage. Looking inside, they saw the rose they’d brought with them – the one their father had plucked from the castle gardens – standing in a small vase of water. There were petals on the table around it. It was dead: they could see that much.

They went back to their room, guilt polluting every thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, a flower-enamoured idiot: what if I wrote a story in which there are very few flowers and I can only use them sparingly because each one is symbolic?


	3. A Nocturne of Propriety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I uploaded yesterday as well, but with any luck I'll not be updating for the next week or two (or more) because my writing time will be totally eaten up by a different project. 
> 
> A piano piece gets played at one point, and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFJYU0FbAbo) is the one I had in mind for it (shout out to shay for that because my knowledge of classical music is pathetic)

Chara was not unaccustomed to guilt. Perish the thought: if they hadn’t worked out how to push it down and drown it, they never would have got anything done around their family. There were only so many unsaid criticisms and pitying or resentful looks you could take before guilt became part of your routine.

It was, however, a surprise to realise that they might have a chance at doing something about this particular guilt.

The morning after meeting Toriel, they gave it some thought while they and the castle had a companionable difference of opinions on what clothes they should wear. ‘Drained’ still felt accurate: they had no energy or will to do anything, so they slumped on a chair, sipped tea and refused the clothes that appeared on their bed and were subsequently whisked away. For magic that came from a curse, the castle was unsettlingly eager about such things.

It had a weakness for frills, Chara learned with some distaste, and even after they had made their preferences clear (skirts were to be layered, never flimsy, and absolutely not frilly) it kept trying to sneak them in. They eventually relented, deciding on a dress with a suitably plain blue skirt and a high neck covered in lace and lined with frills and ribbons. The stockings were just as bad, but they were hidden under the skirt and knee-high boots. The gloves were the same as the day before except, Chara found with some relief, that they had been washed of the sticky residue that came from new scabs.

Walking stiffly, favouring one foot over the other, they were finally allowed out of their room. It wasn’t imprisonment, as such, they thought. They couldn’t really care either way, since they had nothing better to be doing.

That had to change. Through a premature end or through finding something to do, they had no particular preference. What they did know was that guilt was still clinging to them like the lingering grease of poor quality soap, and they thought they might have the opportunity, for once, to do something about it. Where they had never succeeded in changing their family’s opinion of them, they might be able to do something about the curse.

The idea forced a smile to their mouth, although it wasn’t a pleasant one. It wouldn’t be wholly truthful to say they had a good track record with fixing things. They hadn’t even any idea where to begin, but the idea had planted itself, and if it took root, it took root. If it didn’t, there was plenty of glass ready to be smashed and used.

Pleased with the neatness of their plan, Chara decided to fully explore the castle.

They started on the third floor, above the floor they slept on, since they hadn’t made it that far the night they’d arrived. The most immediately noticeable thing was that it felt lived-in. The carpet covering the floor on the landing and the two wings spreading to either side was not worn, but it was compressed in a way that the second floor’s was not. Here and there, Chara imagined they could see scratches on the varnish of the floor, but that really must have been their imagination. The castle wouldn’t have stood for that.

There were vases all over: small ones on tiny tables, placed on equally small lace coverlets, or ones that came up to Chara’s waist sitting rotund on the floor, painted in simple colours with interlocking geometrical designs or floral motifs. All emphatically empty, but in a dignified way. Chara trailed by them without any particular aim, admiring the decoration distantly.

Corridors led to more corridors, doors led to staircases and hidden towers that held more rooms, and just when they’d turned back to explore the other side of the floor, a whole new wing opened up as if it had been waiting for the most dramatic moment in which to do so. It was getting wearing. Castle or not, the sheer amount of rooms was completely superfluous. Nobody needed this.

Except, they remembered as they turned back from a white-and-blue-tiled bathroom, people had. A whole country had. And perhaps they hadn’t filled up every room, but each glance out of a window into the gardens reminded Chara that people had lived here and they were walking through their afterimage. It was almost morbid, if they thought of it like that.

With an unhealthy surplus of rooms to explore, they ended up not exploring any of them as thoroughly as they might have, which in most cases meant that they looked inside the room and promptly shut the door. They didn’t know what they were looking for. A convenient scroll detailing how to break the curse? A spell-book tucked neatly into a bookcase, peeking out just far enough for them to notice it? There was nothing they could find in a single morning, not if Asriel had lived his whole life in the same castle and found nothing. It had happened so long ago: how naïve was Chara, to think that they would be able to do anything?

They paused, boots stopping firmly on a pleasingly red rose in the carpet’s design. They looked up, stretching their neck, and swallowed. Then they looked in front of them and carried on walking. The nails of their right hand were dug into the wrist of their left. It would not do to think that way. There was a curse to break and people to save, and while they would have preferred a larger array of smaller tasks rather than one of such importance, nobody had asked their preferences, so they would take it as it was. ‘Impossible’ would have to be changed for ‘unlikely’.

As they walked across the landing and into the second half of the floor, a tune pulled itself out of the general ticking of clocks and creaking of the woodwork. It was too far away to have any sort of melody to it but as they walked – quickening their pace with the quickening of their heart – notes budded off the muffled sound until they could hear it properly. Piano, and how long had it been since they’d heard that?

How long indeed.

The corridor opened into a T and they followed the tune down the left passage, sparing a few looks for the windows that ran along the right side and the sparse flower gardens beyond. Their footsteps sounded hurried even to them, but were they so deluded, to think that music playing in a deserted castle brimming with magic _meant_ something?

So, their heels hitting the carpet dully as if in accompaniment to the piano, they hurried towards the door that was slightly ajar at the end of the corridor. They slowed as they approached it, reaching a gloved hand to hold the brass handle and push it open, their breath weak and short in their lungs, although that was more from exertion than nerves. The door opened without a single squeak of hinges, but somehow Asriel still looked across to see them when they walked inside.

He sat in an armchair that seemed built especially for his size, and he appeared to be listening to the piano which was (unsurprisingly, perhaps) playing of its own accord. The tune was pretty: strings of scales flowing into each other in something that sounded not unlike a horse’s gallop, if the animal in question was a show-horse trained to show off the loveliness rather than the power of its form. In short, it felt over-decorated.

Whether it was or not, Asriel’s attention wasn’t on it any longer: he was only looking at them, with something like pleased surprise on his face. They, in contrast, were making a concerted effort to hide their disappointment that it had just been him entertaining himself rather than anything that might be helpful. They considered walking away, but that seemed childish. They’d made a promise, after all.

So they walked into the music room coolly and sat down on a chair that wasn’t unnaturally big.

The room was large, with a ceiling split into two arch shapes, the middle bisected by a great beam of dark wood. There were gaping windows on two sides, framed by gauzy white curtains, and a glossy grand piano at one end. At the sides, there were carved bookcases with sheet music arranged in artful ways to pretend there was more than there actually was, and the lower shelves were hidden by doors. All around the room there were various other instruments on stands or in cases: Chara recognised most, but not all of them. Some didn’t seem playable by humans, which made sense.

With a great amount of flourish, the song came to an end and the piano keys became still again.

There was a small pause, in which Chara took the time to cross their feet at the ankles and admire their boots. Good quality leather, such as they hadn’t worn in a while.

“Good morning,” Asriel said, as if to the cello opposite him. “You look nice.”

They had made a promise. More than that, there were ways in which things were done, and they were a guest. “Thank you,” they said. To look at him, they would have had to turn their head to the side deliberately and undeniably, so they didn’t.

“You can, uh…If the castle gets too pushy, you can tell it to stop. It used to try to dress me up in the worst things. You don’t have to weather it if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”

It wasn’t totally clear to them why they were staying in the room. Perhaps the brief excursion earlier had tired them out, but that seemed somewhat pitiful, as reasons went, so they rejected it. The truth was different, anyway. They enjoyed the smell of the music room. Resin and the mustiness of wood and strings; the slight sharpness of brass. A series of mouthpieces gleamed on the mantelpiece across from them, by the door. Everything felt muffled by velvet or something very like it, but that was just how music rooms tended to be, in their experience. They had a lot of experience to draw on.

“Did you have anything you wanted to do today?” Asriel attempted conversation valiantly. “I can show you around properly, if you like. If you’d prefer to rest, that’s fine too: it’s better not to push yourself.”

It was a strange notion, since they’d been able to put in full days of physical work back at the cottage. Dizzy spells and shaking limbs aside, they had done perfectly well; it was unsettling to be so coddled in what was essentially the lap of luxury. So they shook their head, remembering that they needed to wash their hair as strands of it fell in their face.

“I’m fine here, thank you.”

“Okay!” He said it with energy that it didn’t merit. “Do you…do you like music?”

“I do.”

“Do you play an instrument?”

He was being mildly annoying, but that was an improvement. They turned their head to look at him, at the comedic contrast between his hesitant eagerness and his sheer size. Under the morning light pushing through the window behind him, his fur seemed to glow white.

“I do. I played the piano.” They pushed themself. “Do you play?”

He shook his head, ears flopping from side to side. “I never had anyone to learn from. There are books, but…” he shrugged. “I never got around to it, I suppose. Why should I, when the castle plays anything I ask it to?”

Chara shrugged as well, since they didn’t have an answer.

“I, um…I thought you came from the village, though. Do they have pianos there? They’re expensive, aren’t they? I read that they were.” Before Chara could answer, he cut in nervously, “Oh, but at one point you said you moved here, didn’t you?”

“We did. Before, we lived in a townhouse and there was the money to pay for instruments and lessons. My brother and sister played too. My father liked the sound of music around the house, and he liked us to play for guests.”

“Did you all play piano? That must have got crowded,” he laughed.

“No. My brother played the trumpet. He was never very good and never practised enough, so it always sounded tinny. He didn’t have the lung capacity for it. My sister played the violin. She was a prodigy.”

Memories rose unbidden. It had never been a blatant thing, but it had always been made just obvious enough that their father preferred the sound of violins. That had been his excuse: a favourite one, as they recalled. All the money and attention went to their sister, even after the trumpet had been sold and their brother’s tutor turned off. That was how things worked, with a prodigy.

“I prefer the piano,” Asriel said hastily.

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Emphatically, his black eyes wide. “So, uh…do you remember any pieces? Or you could look for sheet music, but…would you play? Or you’re welcome to do it when I’m not here! I can leave, if you want. Just, please feel free to use this room as much as you like. All of them, you can use everything here as you like. It’s here for you.”

His gaze hadn’t left them once through his spew of burning enthusiasm and they had to turn away. A lonely boy caught in the thrills of being a host for the first time, that was all it was. Worthless. He didn’t mean any of it: he’d get territorial and selfish too, and he was perfectly within his rights to do it. But he was their host and they had been behaving appallingly, so they said, “I remember a few.”

“Really?”

They’d practiced for weeks on end, until their fingers hurt and staves were imprinted on the backs of their eyelids. They remembered. “Really.”

The piano stool was the perfect height when they sat down on it, and it had the perfect amount of plush to be comfortable. The keys were clean and – when they played a scale experimentally – moved easily. They ran through the first few bars in their head, checking they knew it, and their fingers began to itch with the need to play.

It had been so long.

The scabs on their hand gave way without much of a fuss when they stretched their fingers, and then they put their hands and feet into position. A breath, and they began.

The piece started off gentle for the left hand and soft but piercingly high in comparison for the right. It lilted from bar to bar, their fingers moving into position before they’d even consciously thought of what note to play next. Music was like that, sometimes, for them. Muscle memory, they thought it was. The song progressed and a crescendo took hold, but it was teasingly slow. It was all slow. They could almost feel Asriel’s gaze on the back of their neck.

Halfway through, the left hand sped up, the piece growing aggressively loud; the rhythm jerked back and forth as if held only by the movements of their shoulders. It swelled into something jauntier – major for a few measures, like an inside joke before going back to minor. The notes seemed to come out wryly, which wasn’t something they remembered from before. Regardless, they moved with the song, letting their body fall into the tempo as they played, closing their eyes for a second or two before they thought better of it. It slowed down again, growing quieter and more reserved.

The piece ended as it had begun, but lighter, as if something had been learnt.

For a while, Chara simply stared at the keys and breathed heavily. It had been a long time. They could feel the tendons of their wrists complain in an understated way, but it didn’t matter. They hadn’t realised how much they’d missed it.

Before they contemplate the idea any further, Asriel said, “That was wonderful!”

They turned on the stool, their skirt crumpling up under their legs. “Thank you.”

“I never realised you could play like that! That was beautiful, Chara. It was totally different from how the castle plays: I didn’t even imagine that pianos could sound that mournful.” He was up and moving towards them.

“It wasn’t a mournful piece.”

“Well no, but it was at parts. Let’s allow that.”

They did, with a small nod. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“I did, I really did!” He was too close, looming over them. “I thought it was lovely, how it kept going back on itself, like it was self-aware enough to keep to the mournful part but also show hints of…rebellion or something. I liked that.”

At a loss for anything to say, since they had never been the recipient of praise in this way before, they repeated, “I’m glad.”

“Will you play something else or is that enough? I’m happy to go if you’d prefer to practice on your own, but…if you wouldn’t mind, could I stay? Your playing is so pretty, I’d love to hear more.”

Any closer and he’d touch them. Did he know? Perhaps it was on purpose. They could feel the warmth of his hand through the thin silk of their sleeve. Another hair’s breadth and his claws would brush against their skin, they knew it. It had to be on purpose. He had to know how tight their chest was, how they couldn’t even look up at him. He was too close.

“…Chara, are you alright? You’re shaking.”

As if they didn’t know. They clamped one hand over the wrist of the other, ignoring the sudden pull of scabs stretched too far. Their breath stopped completely when they heard the crinkle of fabric, felt him put a hand out to touch them.

He stopped before the black, leathery pads of his palm touched their shoulder. Neither of them moved, as if bound into immobility by the very air around them. Chara was acutely aware of every breath he took and every thrum of their own pulse in their ears.

The hand was retracted.

Far too late, they said, “Please don’t touch me.” It came out stiff and stately.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded admonished, which was a start. “I didn’t mean to…I forgot. I’ve never had another person here like this and sometimes it’s…difficult to resist.”

They didn’t care: they didn’t want his apologies or excuses, they just wanted him to move away from them. Restore the distance between their bodies and go back to what they had been trying to make work.

It took him half a minute. They counted the seconds. When he did move, it was a burst of energy that seemed misplaced in his hulking body, and then he was several paces from them and they could straighten up. They uncrossed their legs and then crossed them the other way.

A silence, and it felt like one they had to rectify.

“You said, before, that you hadn’t thought pianos could sound like that,” they said without looking at him. “It’s because you’ve been listening to the castle play all this time. Pianos are, by nature, impersonal instruments. They aren’t like wind or brass, where your breath gives the song life. A pianist has to put in all of the emotion themself. So a piece can sound radically different depending on who’s playing. That’s why.”

“Oh,” he said. “Thank you for…for explaining it. I really do like the way you play, though.”

“Novelty is attractive.”

“It’s more than that.”

They tilted their head forwards. “If you say so.”

The air felt corrosive to them and they got up abruptly, walking over to the window. From their height, they could see the blackened forest outside the gates like a never-ending field of charred bones.

He was trying to get on their good side – they knew the techniques. Their sister had used them enough: she had been good at piling praise – beautiful, impossible praise – into every conversation they had, as if insincere and unspecific compliments could mean anything to Chara.

But they had, as it so happened, meant something. It had taken a long time before Chara became jaded enough to realise that they were being softened and sweetened so they didn’t embarrass anyone.

The floor creaked behind them and they knew Asriel was leaving. Apparently he possessed the bare minimum of tact, but while they would have appreciated it and taken advantage of it in most situations, they felt like they’d be losing if they backed down after a single song’s worth of socialising.

Raising their voice to be heard, they said, “Could you show me the gardens, if you’re not busy?”

When they turned around to look at him, he was smiling; an expression that should have been incongruous with his body and yet wasn’t. He managed to look friendly.

The gardens were not much more impressive in daylight than they had been at night, but Chara didn’t have the wherewithal to be critical. In stark contrast with the castle itself, the gardens _were_ morbid. Every flower they passed set them thinking: who had this been? What had their life been like?

They did their best not to show any discomfort, and since they knew full well that they probably hadn’t looked comfortable since they’d arrived at the castle, they weren’t sure it mattered either way. Whatever they appeared to feel, Asriel didn’t comment on it. He led them without ever touching them, joyfully showing them around.

There were no birdcalls or insects, Chara noticed idly. It wasn’t unusual for a garden to be bare in winter, but it seemed odd, given how brightly each flower was blooming, that there weren’t any slugs, at least. A smattering of greenfly or midges was to be expected, but they didn’t see any. Without much other choice for conversation, they remarked on it.

Asriel, ever helpful, looked at them blankly. “Insects?”

They dropped the subject.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they were finished, and Chara excused themself to go and look for the libraries they felt sure the castle must have. Searching for books – and, if available, histories of the castle and kingdom – were not the first things on their mind, however. Mostly they needed to get away.

It was enough to replenish their energy for another dinner that felt more awkward than outright suffocating (perhaps because Asriel had finally learnt what unease looked like and realised that watching them eat was causing it).

They excused themself from that as well, rising to their feet before food could be heaped helpfully onto their plate again. Before they turned for the door, Asriel called their name to stop them.

He seemed to drip with regret; the look of a child who knows they’re about to be told off.

“I, uh…I know this is late, but I really hope you can find enjoyment here. I hope you can have fun here. I hope it’s not too stressful, away from your, um, family.” He looked at his claws as he said it, scraping them one over the other. “And I’m sorry for essentially imprisoning you here. It’s never seemed like imprisonment to me – it’s just life – so I don’t think I realised that you might not see it the same way. I just wanted company. I’m sorry.”

It felt mildly self-serving, as apologies went, but they nodded. “Thank you.”

 

The night was restless and they woke up well before dawn, while the sky was still black outside in the dearth of any lamp to light it up from below. Their curtains were open again.

Soft sheets fell off them easily when they sat up and rubbed their eyes, feeling as if every part of them ached. They were wearing a proper nightgown this time, but it was tangling up between their legs and that seemed mildly irritating. It was the type of thing that would be added to other such irritations and eventually blow up in scale, but it hadn’t quite gotten there yet, so they didn’t move. Their hair was a mess, some strands at the back still damp from washing it. There was a comb at the end of the bed when they passed their eyes over there again.

As they woke up properly, it became steadily clearer to them why they were awake. There was the same pull as the night before, and that wasn’t even slightly surprising. Apparently, they had somewhere to be. Rallying their faculties, they pushed themself off the bed and obediently shrugged on the coat that had appeared on the table; boots were waiting for them at the door. They didn’t bother to use the comb.

Lamps lit up their way as if pulling them by tether: they were led a different way to the gardens, through small, cave-like rooms with thick stone walls that made them hug the coat closer to their shoulders. Still sleepy and far from their best – whatever their best was – they couldn’t have said they thought they were going to be much for conversation, if the flower they were being taken to was less talkative than Toriel had been.

They were brought out into the garden behind the kitchens (spotlessly clean), and then Chara felt the pull as if it had them by the teeth; they began to run. It didn’t take very long. A few seconds perhaps – a gift, since Chara’s still-aching feet couldn’t take much more than that. Then they were standing, shivering, under lamplight that sent dust motes sparkling in the air, and looking down at a patch of small flowers. They were like a cloud of tiny, dusty-blue petals in a sky of soil. They’d grown in the townhouse, back before the move. Forget-me-nots.

There was the odd feeling that this was anything but a mere social call: that there was some deeper meaning to being here, but that was absurd. Chara crouched, bringing their knees to their chest and tucking the nightgown under their legs, and they reached out a hand to brush the flowers.

A moment of silence. They pulled their hand back to their chest, weighing up the merits of falling asleep outside. It occurred to them, listening to the whispers of grass in the wind, that they might have to be the one to initiate it.

So they said, meekly, “Hello.”

More silence. Then, “New, aren’t you? Never heard you before.”

It was a gruff man’s voice, but he didn’t seem entirely unpleasant. Chara replied, “I am.”

He laughed roughly. “That’s all you’ve got, bucko? Don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”

“No,” they answered honestly.

“Gotta shake their hand,” he said, and there was a pause. “Oh, yeah. Well, I guess that _leafs_ us in a pretty sticky situation, huh?”

“I guess it does.” They could hear the shine of a smile in their own voice and they didn’t quite have the energy to bite down on it. It didn’t really matter, did it? Whether he caught them smiling or not, it meant nothing for their dignity, not really.

A second part of their brain had to remind them that smiling was supposed to be good. They wouldn’t lose face by it.

“You got a name then, kid? You still there?”

“I am. Sorry. I’m Chara.” Because it only seemed right, they added, “I’m…I’m human.”

“Yeah? What’re you doing here, then?” He made a sound that sounded a bit like laughter in the same way that course wool was like cotton. “Ol’ Fluffybuns must really have shaken things up.”

“Asriel brought me here and now I can’t leave for reasons no one has seen fit to explain beyond the existence of a curse.”

“Heh. The prince must have grown up some since I last saw him.”

Chara made an affirmative sound. “Enough to bring people here and tell them they can’t go back,” they said without as much venom as they might have used.

“Sucks, doesn’t it? Can’t say we ever got much more explanation than you did, either.” _And look at us compared to you_ , he didn’t say, but it was there. Or Chara heard it, anyway. “Anyways, the name’s Sans. You’re here, so I’m guessing you don’t need me to explain anything? That’s cool, ’cause I love not explaining stuff.” He said it in a way that encapsulated a shrug, refining insouciance to the tone of his voice alone.

“I do know.” Ingrained protocol reminded them to ask, “Do you need me to explain anything? I know very little of what’s going on, and Asriel could explain better, but if you’ve been a flower all this time, I can imagine it might be disorienting.”

“Sure, it is, I guess. Can’t say I think it matters, though, y’know? I kinda know what’s going on, why I’m like this, why I can’t see my brother anymore, stuff like that, but what’s it really matter anyway? Can’t do anything anyhow. Nah, don’t stress yourself, kid.”

“Asriel’s destined to save you all,” Chara said slowly, like a token protest against his apathy. They didn’t like how it sounded coming out of their mouth: they barely believed it themself.

“Is he? How about that.” A chuckle, rasping. “Never met him personally, but hey, if he says so.”

“You’ve never met him? Has he never come to speak to you?”

“Nah. Only one who did that was my brother, y’know, back at the start. Came every hour, all regular. Kept me up to date on what ol’ Gaster was getting up to without me, what the king and queen were doing, how many people had fallen, that kinda thing. The stuff you wanna talk about with your brother.”

“One day he stopped coming,” they found themself saying. It wasn’t a question because there was no question about this.

Sans laughed. “Genius, kid. Yeah, one day he stopped coming. Didn’t even know though, did I? Gaster came visiting a week later or something: he told me. Well, he had his own business to take care of, ’course. Couldn’t come much, didn’t talk much when he did, but I always knew what he meant. Or what he experi _meant_.” A hoarse laugh, the kind that should have accompanied coughing, perhaps. “Ah, maybe you won’t get that one: he’s the royal scientist. You met him?”

“No.” They couldn’t quite imagine what function a royal scientist had. Thinking of scientists, they only knew of men in shabby clothes congregating in lively clubs in the cities where they wrote articles and fierce letters to one another about their discoveries. It wasn’t something they had ever felt any attraction towards.

“…I guess, since you’re the one here and not him, Gaster’s fallen too?”

“Something like that.” They averted their eyes from him despite the gesture being pointless. It was the look of the thing. “I hear it’s been centuries since it started. Maybe a decade and a half since the king…fell. He was the last.”

A low whistle. “Yikes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well,” he breathed. “Wouldn’t say it’s a good feeling. Everyone’s gone, huh?”

“Except for Asriel.”

“Our prince. Heh. Kid, I’m sure he’s great and all, but one person can’t do shit about this.”

Chara blinked. “He might be able to. He’s the prince, he’s destined for this.” It was a weak line of defence, ready to be battered down at the slightest attack. They weren’t sure how much they believed it either. They certainly didn’t know how much they wanted to believe it.

“Destined?” A laugh. “Poor kid.”

“He seems confident.”

“Maybe he’s just one of those types.”

“He is,” they said without a second of hesitation. ‘One of those types’: the shining stars of confidence and charisma. The ones who smiled and it took your breath away. Except that with him, Chara thought wryly, that was mostly because of the teeth.

They had been crouching for too long. The air was so cold, numbing their skin, and their lack of anything to say felt shamefully obvious to them. They couldn’t see why they’d been brought out here. If it was just to chat, they could…

They stopped themself. They could _not_ just do it as easily with Asriel. Quite emphatically not, in fact. The very idea seemed laughable, but then, they had a tendency to laugh at things internally, whether they were funny or not. You did have to try, after all. Keep flying or fall; keep swimming or sink. Keep pretending you had a chance at changing anything, or fall to despair. Keep acting as if you had a reason to exist, or die.

A grin rose to their lips and they indulged it. Sans couldn’t see, anyway.

The breach in conversation stretched on, and they let it, because they thought he might need the time to think. Somewhere along the way, it occurred to them that they might do well to try and say something sensitive for once, rather than stay silent and ice-cold. Their sister had always told them that.

“It…it isn’t the best bright side, but at least you don’t have to deal with anything this way,” they said, in an attempt at comfort that probably wouldn’t work. “Everything’s already decided for you when you wake up. Isn’t it nice, to fall asleep and know that you won’t have to bother with anything? It would be different if people were dying, but they’re not. You’re just sleeping. Isn’t it better, like this?”

“You saying you wanna trade?”

Chara opened their mouth and shut it again almost immediately. _Yes_ was their instinctive answer, written so deeply into their very bones that they weren’t sure they could say anything else without committing an unforgivable act of betrayal against who they were. But that wasn’t the right thing to say in this kind of situation. They weren’t supposed to let others know, or they weren’t supposed to burden others with the knowledge.

“Well,” Sans said without much finality, “it’s not my business, the way I see it. You feel the way you like, kid. Ain’t gonna change anything round here anyways.”

They wondered about that.

For a while, neither of them said anything. Chara’s breath came out in clouds in front of them, and their hands were even paler than normal under the milky lamplight, robbed of the natural flaws on their skin. Was there a point to this? Was there something they should have been asking? They had been led here, to him, so presumably there was some reason behind it, but they couldn’t see it.

Maybe there wasn’t any point at all: perhaps it _was_ just a social call to someone who had been neglected for a very long time. That might be fitting.

They found themself saying, “Do you know what kind of flower your brother turned into? I could speak to him for you.”

“Nah. Gaster never was any good at flowers, and I didn’t ask.” There didn’t seem to be much emotion in his voice. The petals of the forget-me-not rustled. “Wouldn’t have much to say anyway.”

“If you like.” They felt like they were treading sensitive ground, so they asked, “Is it…is it difficult, being like this? Sleeping for so long, and then waking up and hearing what you’ve missed.”

“Dunno. Don’t really have the time to think about stuff like that. You wake up and someone’s there, wake up and someone else is there. Just how it goes.”

They didn’t know what to say to that. It sounded ideal, but they knew that that was probably a facile way of looking at things. It was them trying to strip their humanity away again, imagining themself in permanent hibernation, away from the world. Happy fantasies. Fantasies where they had no need to worry about not having a reason to live, because it wasn’t strictly a life.

Rather than mention that, they changed the subject. Someone had to, and they were curious enough. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you tell me about how you lived, before the curse, please?” Blunt and misplaced manners, long since in need of a whetstone, but they hadn’t had tutors in far too long.

Sans obliged anyway. He had a curious way of telling stories: an anecdote appeared to go in one way before ending somewhere totally different to where it had been advertising, often in the form of a bad joke. Nothing in particular was said. Nothing of interest in terms of the curse, nothing that captured Chara’s full attention. But they listened. With their elbows on their numb thighs, with their chin in frozen hands, they listened, and they occasionally made an awkward murmur of encouragement in lieu of a nod. They listened, and they noticed how all the anecdotes but one were about Sans’ brother, about how Papyrus had done this thing or said that thing, and they noticed the pride that shone in the monster’s voice. He didn’t hide it: his bitterness seemed to melt away as he spoke.

The image of the monster kingdom he painted for them was not immaculate, and it was far from complete. It was a single person’s life, a single person’s friends and family. Friends and family who repeatedly rallied together, repeatedly celebrated together, repeatedly had stupid, meaningless fun together.

Chara listened. For a while, they forgot their own guilt. Determination grew in them like a seedling, because they could recognise something worth protecting when they saw it.


	4. Changing and Unchanging Things

Asriel frowned. “That can’t be entertaining.”

“And yet it is.” It wasn’t. Chara had never really bothered with card games before, especially not after the move. Those were something their sister enjoyed, and their brother enjoyed more but with less skill. But they had woken with the sort of tiredness that sunk into bones and flesh impartially, making every movement uncomfortable, and they were utterly disenchanted with the idea of curling up to read. There was too much choice in the library, and they had no confidence that they could choose a book that wouldn’t disappoint them. So they had walked around aimlessly, finally ending in an empty room with a large table and a pack of cards waiting on it, as obnoxiously suggestive as if the castle had waggled its non-existent eyebrows at them.

So they were here, sitting on a plush couch and trying to remember how to play solitaire. It was going alright, although they had no illusions that they were actually playing to the original rules.

“It’s just cards,” Asriel grumbled, a hulking hill of fur and teeth in the door.

“It is.” Chara raised their eyes just enough to look pointedly at his claws before lowering them again. “Presumably you’ve never played.”

“No.”

They thought they might have a migraine coming on, which really would sour the day significantly. It was not, they imagined, unreasonable to ask that he either come and play with them or leave. Having him loom over them was distracting. They slapped a three of hearts down on a chain already four cards strong.

“Would you like to watch, or can I help you in some other way?” they asked icily, turning over another card from the deck.

“Can I?”

“Certainly, if you _sit down_.”

He did, and it was as if the couch opposite theirs grew to accommodate him. Practical, but somehow annoying. They really were going to have a migraine. Mercifully, however, he didn’t assault them with questions about what they were doing. He just watched, which was more than a little off-putting on its own, and said strictly nothing.

The irritating thing, beyond the string of bad cards they kept turning over, was that they should have been questioning him. They had enough things to enquire about, and, with only him to ask, their course of action was clear. It was also unattractive and probably useless. Asking him about the curse again would do nothing. Asking him too many questions would, eventually, lead even him to think that they knew more than they were letting on, and that sounded annoying to deal with afterwards.

But they were getting complacent, and complacency was a dangerous thing to fall into. Concentrate too much on the same things – walks and card games and piano practice and books – and it was easy to forget one’s duty.

They collected a suit from the rows of cards on the table, pushing them together and adding them to the suit already compiled. Two more, which meant the game wouldn’t last much longer. They looked up to catch him watching their hands.

“Would you like to play?”

He started. “Oh, um. I think that mightn’t be a good idea.”

“No, I suppose not. I have no doubt that there are more packs of cards around here somewhere, but having you pierce them straight through is a little much.”

“Mm.” he sounded upset. They were coming to the dregs of the deck.

Curiosity got the better of them, as it so often did. “How have you spent the better part of two decades here, alone? What on earth do you _do_?”

“Oh, I mean, I have…hobbies, I suppose.” Leaning back, he appeared to think about it. “Reading is fine, if I don’t try and hold the book and turn the pages at the same time. And painting, and-”

“Painting?” They looked up.

“Yeah!” he smiled. It was almost grotesque.

“You can paint?”

“With a big enough brush,” he admitted sheepishly. “But the castle is good about providing anything you might need, so it’s been giving me all the right-sized brushes I could ask for. And paints, and canvases, obviously.”

Chara made a noise of vague interest, collecting a wad of cards together and already playing out the end of the game in their mind. Five more moves, probably.

“If you’d like the proof, I can show you,” he said in a small voice, just as they were collecting together the last suit. They put it down on the table and looked him in the eyes.

There was nothing else they were good for, anyway: they might as well humour him and make him happy. “If it’s not too much bother.”

“It isn’t at all!” He smiled, rows of teeth gleaming prettily. “I mostly do copies or landscapes, but you’re welcome to come to the portrait gallery if you’re finished.”

A portrait gallery, naturally. They put the cards away, leaving the pack in its carved mahogany box just as they’d found it, and followed after him as he led them out into the corridor.

It was on the second floor, apparently, in one of the wings they had managed to miss on their first night. Asriel seemed eager: he forgot to slow down for them, so they followed at a pace they never would have chosen normally, though not as awkwardly as they might have done in skirts. Stockings and trousers so short they barely came to mid-thigh may have been an odd choice, but they were easy to move around in, and Chara liked the braces hooking over their shoulders. Something to hold onto and fiddle with.

The portrait gallery turned out to be a long hall with several crystal chandeliers, unlit but twinkling in the morning light that shone through tall windows. The floor twinkled too, as it happened: the wood was polished to a fault and there appeared to be flecks of gold under the varnish. It seemed a waste.

Along the wall opposite the windows, a row of paintings were hung up in gilt frames. At least, Chara hoped they were gilt. Pure gold would have been excessive, even for this castle. The majority of the paintings were portraits of various monsters, and Asriel showed them off, happily listing names that Chara had no confidence they’d remember.

He had talent, or skill: it didn’t really matter, since the paintings were nice to look at.

“But I mean, as far as I know, he was a very influential figure even if he did have a terrible personality,” Asriel was explaining as they passed the portrait of a humanoid monster winking seductively with unnaturally long eyelashes. “At any rate, his portrait was in one of the old rooms so I copied it. Oh, and…these are my parents.”

Chara stopped walking. They had been making gentle sounds of appreciation at Asriel’s surprising gift for colours, but now they stopped and forced themself to take in the faces smiling at them.

“I can see the resemblance.”

“I’d hope so,” he laughed awkwardly. “We’re not that different.”

“No,” they agreed, hoping he’d interpret their hesitation as anything other than the hazy attachment of a face to the voice they’d heard days before.

She looked indiscriminately welcoming, exactly as they’d imagined.

“Are these all the portraits you have?” They asked, turning away to follow him to the last few.

“All the ones I’ve done, at least: they usually take me a while. I think that might give you a better idea of what we can look like, though.”

“Quite.” Their eyes searched, again, for a face that fit Sans’ voice, but nothing jumped out at them. A shame.

“Have you…” he started, without any indication he knew what to say next. They looked up at him – snow-white in the morning sun – and he appeared to rally. “Is this the first time you’ve seen so many monsters?”

“It is.” They went to look out of the window onto the supremely dull lawn.

“So the human world really has forgotten.”

“Regrettably,” they said, and meant it. “Monsters are remembered, but only in folk tales and myths.”

“It hasn't even been that long.”

They shook their head in agreement. “No, it hasn’t.”

It was a travesty: an unforgivable loss of history and genocide, and they were powerless.

“Are there still mages?”

Chara looked up, found him looking at them, and went back to looking out of the window. It was cold on their fingertips. “As far as I know, very few. There are witches in small villages, but they aren’t respected in cities. I believe mages and sorcerers and the rest can’t work without respect, so they’ve declined. People are mostly interested in science and philosophy nowadays.”

“Oh. I can’t say I know much about that.”

“I can’t either.”

He seemed to be looking at them, as if expecting them to turn around as well. “So…does that mean you haven’t seen magic in action either?”

They shrugged. “Not per se. There was an old woman in the village and I think she was a witch, but my family didn’t encourage my going to see her.”

“Why not?”

“It was unseemly.” Most things they’d done were unseemly, as it so happened, but that felt like something best kept from him. It would only make the conversation awkward for him, and that wasn’t a good way to act. They bit their lip instead.

“That’s just silly,” he shook his head, putting hands on his not-insubstantial hips. “Witches are supposed to be the heart of small communities: that’s what my history books say.”

“I’m sure they do, but do they take city minds into account?” They raised an eyebrow his way, moving away from the window and letting their fingers trail down it until the last second. “Things must be done in the proper way. One must be seen with the right people, one must socialise in the right circles, one must not bring disgrace. It’s really very simple. Witches went out of fashion many years ago, and sorcerers were thought too dangerous and sly. Too gauche by half.” They started to walk away.

“Is that what you believe?”

“It’s what I know,” they said without turning around, fully expecting him to follow. “How am I supposed to believe it when I’ve never met a magic-user?”

“You’ve met me.” He hurried to catch up, then fell into step.

“You can use magic?”

“I should be able to. My mother and father could, but I’ve never had anyone to teach me, so I just…” he gestured inarticulately with his hands and hung his head. “I can’t really do anything.”

Chara had the bizarre thought that they should pat him on the shoulder. Ignoring the fact that they couldn’t reach, it annoyed them. They clenched their hands together behind their back, walking through into a corridor they couldn’t connect to the mental map they had of the castle. That kept happening.

“Well, I can’t either,” they pointed out. “Most people can’t: it’s not necessarily a deficiency.”

“I suppose…”

“If you’re going to punish yourself over not being everything you should be, I think there are many better options than your lack of magic.”

A pause, in which their footsteps on marble echoed in the stairwell. Then he said in a dry voice, “Thanks.”

“You’re quite welcome.” They wondered if they should go and see Toriel again. She wouldn’t know anything new, but it was a tempting idea on its own merit.

“Chara, what do you like to do?”

“Pardon?” They let him hold a door open for them since he was taller and reached it first, and they walked into something that looked suspiciously like ramparts: a long, open section, crenelated but ornate stonework on one side and the castle rising up on the other. It was just big enough for them to walk side by side.

“I don’t really know how to make the question clearer.”

“No, I suppose not.” It was eerie, without the sounds of birds around them. Even from so high up, they could see nothing but deep, black forest stretching to the horizon on all sides beyond the castle gates. “I played the piano and read.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

They glared up at him before correcting their expression into something less irritated. “Yes. I’m sorry it doesn’t satisfy you.”

“No, that isn’t what I meant!” he sighed, moving to open the door at the end. Chara couldn’t tell where he was taking them, or if they were going anywhere at all. “I just…I was wondering if you had anything you particularly liked to do that you needed…materials for. Things that you maybe miss doing. I’d like for you to be comfortable here, so whatever it is, tell me and I’ll find it for you.”

They looked up at him sharply, stepping through the door without watching where they were going. “Why would you-”

The most warning they got was his black eyes widening, and then they felt the distinct lack of step underneath their foot as they began to fall down the coiled staircase. They didn’t even get the time to reach out for something to steady themself before they felt arms around them, pulling them back and up into the air as if they weighed nothing at all.

They exhaled, and it came out a little too close to a wail for comfort. Their face was filled with gold-and-green waistcoat, their legs dangling in nothingness as unbelievably steady arms held them.

It lasted a few seconds, no more. Enough.

There was a physical drain of warmth when he put them down hastily next to him, stepping back and waving his hands frantically. “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry: I didn’t want to upset you, I just…”

“No, it’s…it’s alright. Thank you.” They stared at the ground with eyes wide open.

“I should have warned you: there’s a gap between the-”

“It’s okay.” Looking up, they forced a smile to their face to calm him. “It’s really alright, Asriel. Thank you.”

 

 

It had been a long time since anyone had held them. They felt the traces for hours.

 

 

It would snow soon, they thought. There was frost everywhere, the grass glistening in lamplight, and their feet were freezing even in thick boots. The tailcoat that had been insistently pushed at them before they left the castle was, unsurprisingly, a relief, and they hugged it to them, crouching in front of Toriel.

She was laughing, and the sound seemed to warm them, but of course that was impossible. It was simply pleasant.

“I am pleased that he was able to show you his work, even with such a…an awkward introduction,” she said in a voice singing with a smile. “He is quite clumsy about these things, is he not?”

“He is.”

“Do not worry yourself about it. But you say his paintings were good?” At an affirmative sound from Chara, she went on. “I could not be sure, with the way he talks down his work as if it were nothing, so that is a relief. I did have something of a hunch, of course!”

A mother’s loving confidence in her child, and Chara smiled, hugging their knees to their chest. “He’s very good, even with those claws.”

“Yes.” Her tone flashed with concern, but she hurriedly changed the subject. “At any rate, you cannot have come here solely to tell an old woman about how you have been spending the past few days. Is there anything I can help you with, my child?”

Even without any eye contact to avoid, they looked at their feet. “I…I really did just come here to talk to you.”

“Oh?”

Chara played with their fingers, forcing the circulation with vicious ferocity. “Should I not have? I didn’t mean to bother you, I’m sorry. I won’t come again if it’s annoying.”

“No! Oh no, my child, it is nothing of the sort.” Were she not a flower, Chara imagined she would be frowning, and the image (vibrant, since they now had a face to picture) struck them with guilt.

No, not guilt. Dread.

“You are more than welcome,” Toriel said gently. “I am delighted to have you speak to me, about anything. You can talk to me about _anything_ , and I will not mind. Please know that you will never bother me. It is not as if I have much to be doing,” she laughed, as a wry joke.

They let their hands rest, breathing out in a great white cloud. “If…if you’re sure.”

“I am quite sure, my dear. You are always welcome. Always, for whatever reason. I know my son is not the most sensitive of souls, and you might have need of someone else to talk to.”

That made them smile, and they let her hear it with a short exhale. A thought came to them. “I might actually have a request, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not! Please, let me hear it, and I will do everything in my power to help.”

They found themself still smiling at her, even if she couldn’t see. There, on a darkened garden path at some unholy hour of the morning, they didn’t feel quite themself. Not that they had been feeling themself for some time. They weren’t convinced there was a ‘themself’ to go back to.

“I was speaking with a different flower a few days ago, and he mentioned he had a brother somewhere around here. I kept expecting the house to show me the way, but it hasn’t. Would you perhaps know a monster called Papyrus? All I know about him is that he was close to the royal scientist.”

“Ah, you have met Sans, then! I trust he is well?” Toriel asked, and then hummed in thought. “I do know his brother, but it has been such a long time since he fell. Let me see…if I remember correctly, he should be planted quite close to Sans, perhaps three beds over. A hollyhock, I think: tall, with round, red flowers.”

Nodding, Chara thanked her and began to get up, stretching their cramped muscles.

“But you cannot be planning to see him now, can you? It is very late, is it not?”

“It is.” Or early: they weren’t sure. Whatever it was, they were restless. “I don’t think I can sleep just yet, though.”

“Well, I am sure you know yourself best, but do take care, will you not?”

They hesitated a moment before nodding again. “I will, thank you. If…if you really don’t mind, I’ll come and see you again soon.”

“I would like that very much.”

The way back to where they had found Sans was easy enough, since the lamps lit the path for them. They had only to follow the light until they found themself in front of the promised hollyhock, standing to attention against a hedge of thick laurel leaves shaped like a sphere for some reason Chara couldn’t begin to guess. It wasn’t their top priority.

They didn’t reach out to touch one of the veined red flowers right away. For a start, they weren’t entirely sure why they’d come. What were they supposed to say? A simple ‘I met your brother and he’s doing well but seems to miss you’? That wouldn’t serve any purpose at all.

They sighed, wondered why on earth they were pushing _themself_ into a conversation that promised to be uncomfortable, and brushed the petals with frozen fingers.

 “Hello!” came an excited voice, almost immediately.

“Ah, h-hello.” It was the oddest thing, having no body language to work with. They weren’t used to it yet, and so they panicked, just slightly. “I’m not sure when you were last woken up, but I regret to say it’s likely been a very long time: more than a decade has passed since the king fell and a century or more since it started. I’m a human brought here by the prince for reasons we really needn’t go into right now, and I’ve been talking to a few of the flowers and I happened to come across your brother and he mentioned you, so I thought…I might…try and find you. To…to…” To do what, exactly?

They were saved coming up with anything because Papyrus didn’t seem to mind. “A human, wowie! Brought by the goodness of your heart to visit me! Fear not, human! I – the Great Papyrus – will do everything in my power to make you at home! Sit, sit! Or don’t, if you’d prefer not to!”

“Oh, um…thank you.” They didn’t sit. “I must confess I didn’t really come here with a plan, but…if you have any questions you’d like answered, or…or anything…”

Why _had_ they come? ‘Out of the goodness of their heart’ and that was a lie, since they had no such goodness to speak of. It had been the bare minimum of politeness: paying a call to a brother because the other couldn’t. That was all it was, except it had become a trap of small-talk and conversation they couldn’t provide.

“Well!” he said cheerfully, seemingly unaffected by their internal and external discomfort. “If you’re answering questions, could you maybe tell me your name?”

“Oh! It’s Chara, I’m sorry.”

“Chara! It’s nice- No, it’s fantastic to meet you! A pleasure, an honour!”

They blinked. “It’s…wonderful to meet you too.”

“And…” Quite unexpectedly, there seemed to be a thread of uncertainty in his voice. “If you’re still answering questions, could you, perhaps, since you said you saw him, tell me how my brother’s doing?”

Firmer ground, then. They smiled to try and put him at ease. “Of course. He seemed alright, to my eye. A little tired and fed up with being a flower, but I think that might just be inevitable. He didn’t seem overly concerned.”

“How very like my brother! Taking the chance to slack off, was he?”

“Something like that,” they said, because there was no use in worrying him.

Papyrus laughed: a grating sound, but not as annoying as it rightly should have been. In the calm of night, it felt contagious. “He hasn’t changed at all!” Chara got the impression he would be shaking his head in despair if he could. As it was, the leaves of the hollyhock rustled, but that could have been a coincidence.

“How so?” they asked, shoving their fingers into the relative warmth of deep, fur-lined pockets.

“My brother will take any chance at all to slack off! You think he’s working, but no! He’s just sleeping standing up! It’s impossible! He can’t do _anything_ without me there to guide him in all my greatness, so I wondered how he must be doing, without me there to tell him what’s going on.” His voice became strangely quiet.

“He’s doing fine,” they said softly. “Really, there’s not a lot of space for him to run into trouble. He only wakes up when someone talks to him, same as you and everyone else. It’s really fine.”

“Of course it is!” Papyrus cried with his ordinary vigour. “And one day our king will- wait no, you said he’d fallen too. Um. Our prince will solve this all! What a magnificent day that will be!”

Chara nodded, not trusting themself to agree verbally. “And you can take care of your brother all you like.”

“Exactly! No more napping on the job for him! I’ll show him how to be a productive and helpful member of society! Like me!”

Brushing hair behind their ear, Chara smiled. “You must be close with him.”

“But of course! We’re brothers, after all!” An audible sense of pride. “Do you have any siblings, Chara?”

“I have two.”

“So you understand!”

“Not quite.” No, not at all. It had been a matter of days, not even a week: they weren’t distanced enough to think logically. All they knew was that their brother had always been against them, on the side of their father but in a desperate, unconfident way where he had to act out to prove himself. And their sister…

Beauty had always been a side all of her own. If she extended an invitation, there was no promise it was anything but temporary.

Papyrus made an uncomfortable sound, somewhere between a concerned hum and a little tune. They realised they must have let out more with two words than they had meant to, and they hurried to correct their mistake, feeling the grip of paralysis as they reverted to chilled politeness, but he spoke first. The ghostly red petals seemed to shake.

“That’s alright! Even if you don’t know, the Great Papyrus will be happy to teach you! More than happy, in fact! I would love to do you the honour of being a replacement brother for you so you can understand! I’ll show you how to be just as cool as me! Once the prince saves us all and I’m not a flower anymore, I shall take you under my wing and help you become the greatest you can be!”

They laughed, because it was easier like that. Their face felt hot, illogically. It was a little hard to breathe. “Do you actually have wings?”

“Admittedly, no.”

“What _do_ you have?”

“Arms, naturally! I am a proud skeleton!”

That solved one mystery, then. “I have one of those too. There’s flesh and organs and skin and hair and things, but there’s a skeleton underneath all that.”

“Then it’s like we’re siblings already!” he said happily.

“I suppose it is.” They weren’t used to this: they didn’t know how to act. It wasn’t proper, it wasn’t decent, and they weren’t getting anything out of it. They had no idea what they could say to make this conversation worthwhile for him. It would be better not to waste his time, they knew.

“I’m sorry,” they said softly. “It’s getting rather cold: I might have to go inside. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all! You need to take care of yourself, Chara! I’m sure humans need lots of care and maintenance, so make sure to give yourself all you need!”

“Th-thank you.” They shook their feet out, stretching their neck. “I’ll try and come to see you again if I can, so…goodbye.”

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you! Goodbye!”

And, as if they had snuffed a candle out, that was it.

For a few moments, they stared at his flower aimlessly, collecting their thoughts with very little success. Then they turned to go back to the castle, feeling fragile to an uncalled-for extent. It was really all absurd. There was no reason to think he was being genuine, or to be happy if he was. Chara knew for a fact that, had he been more than a flower, they would have been deeply unsettled by his familiarity. What need did they have for someone like that – for a brother who was essentially a stranger? They didn’t need siblings at all. They didn’t need anyone: they just needed to rely on themself, as unreliable as they were. They just had to do what they’d set out for themself.

It was that simple, and yet was rapidly becoming more complicated.

It was as they were walking back up the main path – which really should have been lined with flower bushes and yet wasn’t – that they saw Asriel. He seemed as surprised to see them as they were him, but he walked over to meet them anyway, coming from a different corner of the garden. His fur almost seemed grey in the light.

“Night walk?” he asked.

They nodded. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I couldn’t either.” It was so obviously a lie that it took an effort of will for Chara to not look at him sceptically. How he couldn’t see they were lying as well, and for the exact same reason, was beyond them. But he apparently didn’t, and the two of them walked side by side, Chara hugging their coat around their shoulders and Asriel apparently happily unaware that it was close to freezing temperatures.

They wondered how many times he had done this walk by himself. Perhaps not in the middle of the night – not without a meddlesome human guest to keep secrets from – but alone still, for years. Almost his whole life, with only flowers to talk to.

“Does it ever get lonely?” they asked in a quiet voice as they climbed up sandstone steps, not bothering with the decorative banister.

He looked at them oddly. “Yes. That’s why I called you here, remember?”

“But being the last monster, I mean. Isn’t that lonelier?”

Uncharacteristically, he didn’t leap to answer them. The late hour, perhaps, or something else they couldn’t begin to guess. It took the two of them until the next set of steps before he said, “Maybe. I don’t really know.” A lamp above his head flickered as he passed by.

“Would you have preferred to have, say, a sibling to share this with? Someone else to be the ‘prince of this world’s future’.”

The irony was lost on him, or he just didn’t rise to it. They didn’t look up to see his expression anyway. “No. I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t want to share this. It wouldn’t be fair on them, and…I’m the prince. I have to do it. I shouldn’t have to split the job up.”

They nodded wordlessly.

“Anyway,” he said in a lighter tone, “siblings are annoying, aren’t they? All the books say so.”

Annoying was not quite the word Chara would have used. Siblings were a mirror, but instead of seeing all your flaws, you saw everything you could – should – be. One step better than a mirror, then.

But they nodded, again. “I suppose so.”

That seemed to be the end of it: he opened doors and they followed him into and through the castle. It barely felt like night, with all the candles lit in welcome. When they got to the third floor, Chara stopped, stretching their neck to meet his eyes. Fully black and inhuman as ever.

“I forgot to mention it at dinner, but the castle left a piece out for me in the music room and I intend to practice it tomorrow.  If you’d like to come and listen, you can.”

He blinked, and their confidence crumbled.

“Of course,” they said, stumbling through words, “if you’d prefer not to, that’s absolutely fine as well, and indeed expected, so-”

“No, it’s…I’d love to,” he said, and smiled. “I’d really love to hear you play.”

It was as if their very eyes were unwilling to leave him, because here, for the first time, he looked genuinely friendly. It was no illusion cast by his voice: there was, finally, something appealing in the curve of his too-big mouth and the slits of his eyes.

They nodded sharply, and left him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation with Papyrus shattered me and if Shay (ao3 user valety) hadn't helped me, I would probably still be shattered.
> 
> Anyway it's been a while, what with all that tournament au tomfoolery, but. Here we are


	5. Respite From a Nascent Paradise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains in-depth description of a depressive episode, a lot of suicide idealisation, references to menstruation, and references to eating disorders/warped self-image. Really not a happy one, then. I promise that it'll get better soon!

 Chara sat back from the keys, their fingers dragging down smooth ebony, sweat budding on the back of their neck and the beginnings of a flush growing on their cheeks. It wasn’t particularly exerting work, but they did have the unfortunate habit of investing themself into the pieces they played. That had never been beaten out of them.

Great booming claps came from behind, and they turned to greet Asriel’s smile. Enthusiastic as ever: in a little over two weeks, they’d decided that he was indeed unnecessarily enthusiastic around them. He was watching them with huge eyes, shining with barely-hidden awe, and it was all so disorienting. It always was: he listened to them practice every time, now (with their permission) and they still weren’t used to it.

“That was beautiful!” he said, and seemed to mean it.

“Thank you.” They were too warm, but that was really the fault of the high-necked dress they wore. Three layers of underskirts and a heavy grey canvas overskirt – decorated in purple fleur-de-lis – were too hot for a mild winter’s day spent inside. They smiled up at him and tried to spread their skirts out some more as he came over to the piano.

Just to see how he’d reply, they said, “I hated it, though.”

“Really?” They could practically see the backtracking in his head. “Well, the tune itself left a lot to desire, I suppose…The scales in the middle felt a little uncivilised, maybe? Or at least not anywhere near as complex as the rest of it. But the playing was excellent! Everything you play sounds so emotional: I love it!”

It might have been Chara’s imagination, but they thought they heard the walls creak in a distinctly put out way. It reminded them of similar creaks whenever they wouldn’t deign to put on the clothes left out for them, demanding new (less frilly or brightly coloured) ones instead. It didn’t seem of any immediate importance, though, so they kept their attention on Asriel, who had his hands together and seemed liable to melt with tension at any second as he waited for their answer.

“You’re extremely free with flattery,” they said eventually, getting up and hoping it would cool them down. “Did you say you wanted to go to the solar?”

He nodded, relieved, and led them out of the room. It was familiar now, being led around by him. They still didn’t know their way around the castle properly, or it purposefully moved doors and rooms to confuse them, so they were content to follow him. He was a presence that had grown comfortable by their side, in the same way one will inevitably grow used to new shoes whether they pinch at the start or not. So, over days, they’d followed him around the castle: to multiple libraries, to ballrooms to stare and admire, to giant suites and all the gaping, empty rooms of the kitchens. There was always something to see, if not do, and Asriel seemed to enjoy spending the time with them.

It wasn’t fair that he had so little choice, Chara thought, sometimes. Watching his black, black eyes light up and widen with joy when they agreed to go somewhere with him, or seeing the way he would appear where they were to ask politely if they’d like to do something, they realised how lonely he had been.

It was thus logical that he should cling to them, when they had no memory of ever spending so much time with a person before. They let it happen, because any opportunity for distraction was attractive: they hadn’t been guided to any flowers for far too long, so there was no progress in finding out about the curse. Beyond that, they had found no clues lying around helpfully in the castle, and they had come to the conclusion that Asriel really was as wilfully clueless as he said he was.

It was depressing.

Toriel helped, to the extent that she could, which wasn’t much. In their occasional, brief meetings, she told Chara that they needn’t try so hard, that the castle and its grounds were likely caught in timelessness anyway so once Asriel matured fully he would cease to age, and there was all the time in the world. It was a delicate way of putting something indelicate – that she had already given up. Chara could read between the lines enough to understand that. They’d been brought up to.

They had not been brought up to live with the crushing and inevitable presence of their own eventual failure, which seemed like a dreadful lack of foresight on their father’s part. As it was, they struggled. Everything sharpened to points: there was nothing they could do, so they were a failure. They couldn’t save anyone, so they had failed at the one thing they had left to do, that they were supposedly useful for. And yet they couldn’t urge themself into taking initiative, so they were worse than a failure: they were a willing failure – less than nothing.

This all became quite clear to them one morning, a fortnight after they’d arrived.

The first thing they noticed, after memory had crawled its way back to their mind, was that their body ached with tiredness. It was the type of tiredness that compelled you to try and go back to sleep, but there was no point in that: they couldn’t get comfortable. Their whole body was uncomfortable. Everything was wrong.

Lying on their back, staring listlessly above them, they felt themself with impartial fingers. The hardness of bone pleased them: two balls of their hips, the unevenness of their wrists, the harsh lines of collarbones, maintained for a purpose. It had been a tactic they’d used since they’d realised they could: bodies with less fat had fewer curves. It was the willowy shape of classical androgyny, and they clung to it.

But the comfort of bones was bitter too, because it was only fitting it should be. Their family’s worries and annoyance came back to them; their father’s lectures and prods and disapproving looks were not things they could forget so easily. They had been told many times how unsightly they were, because no one else saw their body the way they did. And their limbs were skinny, not strong – their lungs weak, their skin unhealthy. Their fingers traced over patches of scratchy dryness, over a hundred thousand tiny deformities in their skin, and they hated it.

Too thin; too busty; too weak; wrong.

They didn’t get out of bed for a long time. There was some appeal in sinking into the aching fatigue and thinking about nothing.

When the sheets did, eventually, become too hot to stand, they pushed themself out to the edge and managed to sit up, their feet dangling. The thin light streaming through the windows lit up their legs mercilessly and highlighted every flaw. Now sitting, they realised that their abdomen was far too much like a tangle of pressure and pain for comfort, and it only took a glance back at the sheets they’d been sleeping on to work out why.

All tender hope of the day improving died, and they surrendered to it without fuss. Their nightgown was stained but they couldn’t care. The castle was magic, the linen was always spotless, and any mess was cleaned up within seconds: it could handle some blood. Pointedly, they ignored the fresh clothes and strips of absorbent cloth on the table, just like they ignored the food waiting for them. They just went to close the curtains with enough ferocity to rip them from a few of the rings, then turned back to the bed, hauled the blankets off and crumpled to the floor with them. Curling into a ball half-covered in too-warm blankets, they forced themself into sleep again.

It was horribly disorienting when they woke up to the sound of knocks. It had been a long time since they’d heard that, but there was no compulsion to answer now, since there was no point to anything they did. They weren’t needed. As if the castle could hear them, they whispered, “Lock it.”

There was a click, and the knocks faltered. Some time passed and they stared blindly at the rug they were on. It was a geometrical pattern of things that could equally have been flowers or peacock tails, but their eyes kept unfocussing and they couldn’t bring themself to focus them back.

A knock came again. “Chara? Are you alright?”

They couldn’t find words, or perhaps simply couldn’t find the will to say them.

“It’s only…it’s a lot later than you usually wake up. I was wondering if something was wrong. I’m fairly sure the castle would let me know if there _was_ something wrong, but I thought you might maybe need help. Or at least…” he trailed off.

It wasn’t right to torture him just because they couldn’t control themself. It wasn’t how things should be done: he didn’t deserve this. He’d never asked to have an overwhelming disappointment for a companion. They managed to croak, “I’m fine.”

A pause. “You…you don’t sound fine. Can I come in?”

“No.”

Another pause, but devoid of the sounds of him walking away, which was mildly troubling. He’d done his duty and had to see that they were in no position to provide him with company, so he shouldn’t stay. There was nothing to stay for.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, without any of the vulnerable uncertainty that he’d had before. It felt more genuine that way, but they still didn’t know how to answer him. Everything felt heavy, from their body to their thoughts, and it seemed the most impossible thing to form words. But shaking their head would do no one any good.

“I don’t know,” they mumbled.

Apparently he heard it, because he said, “Then…I’m going to go away for a bit, but I’ll be back in an hour or so, and then I’m going to try and distract you. I don’t want to force you, but I also don’t think that you should be wallowing in unhappiness. But,” he breathed in, “if you really don’t want me to, then just keep the door locked. I won’t come in.”

With that, he left, and they felt like they would cry if they weren’t so corked up with numbness.

By the time he came back, the cramps had become a little better, but that just meant more blood. Nothing else had changed. They’d barely had distinct thoughts since he’d gone. But he knocked, and that had to be addressed.

“Chara, can I come in?”

It was the faint waver in his voice that decided them. They nodded, opening their mouth to try and ask the castle to unlock the door, but it was already opening. The bed was between it and them, so he took a moment to find them in their bundle of blankets and shame. Then he was towering over them, a vision in blue and white with gold trim.

Fear and alarm flashed on his face for just a moment, but were swiftly replaced by a practical sheen of neutrality. They were surprised he had it in him, but even surprise was dull and soft in the back of their mind. Even terror that he’d be irretrievably disgusted by them was dull. Presumably, if they’d reached with enough determination, they could have found it in themself to feel things properly, but they didn’t try.

“Well,” Asriel said in a brittle voice, hands curled into fists on his hips. “First we…” He trailed off, eye drifting to the bed.

They dropped their gaze back to the carpet, curling up tighter.

“That’s blood.”

A miniscule nod.

“Are you…really, are you alright?”

“It’s normal,” they whispered. He didn’t do anything for a while and they assumed he was staring at them, but that was fine. It was all fine, since their standards had sunk so low. It was fine if he stalked off in disgust, or if he never wanted to see them again because they couldn’t even hold themself to basic decency. Who _wouldn’t_ be disgusted? They were a disgrace: huddled up in their own filth without the will to move, the rankness of clotted blood pooling in the air around them.

“Okay,” he said, breathing in. “Okay. First you need to wash. That can’t be hygienic. I’m going to touch you now: shake your head if you want me to stop.”

They were too detached to, so when he gently lifted them to their feet, they didn’t shake their head or move at all. Like they were a wooden doll, he pushed them towards the centre of the room where a giant tin basin waited, filled with hot water. Fresh clothes and towels waited next to it patiently.

“I can help if you need me to, but it might be preferable if I leave for a bit,” he said awkwardly, hands hovering over their shoulders as he stood behind them. “I’ll wait outside, so please get clean. _Please_ , no matter how long it takes…And then I’ll try and help you eat and drink something. Humans can’t go without food and water for as long as we can, so you need to take care of yourself.”

He seemed to be reading from a script. He kept stumbling over words and catching himself on set phrases, as if he wasn’t sure what he was doing. They didn’t blame him. They felt unsteady on their feet, the heat of the bath already leaving them dizzy, and their shoulders fell into his soft palms more than once.

He sighed, resigned, and they thought they knew what came next, except instead of impatience he said, “Do you think you can dress yourself like this? I can…try to help. I’m not sure how well I could do it with my eyes closed or anything, but I could…try…”

In another life, they might have laughed at the image of him putting on someone else’s clothes with eyes closed and his claws clacking together, but as it was they could only nod and say, “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

“Then…I’ll be outside the whole time, so please…”

He left, and they looked at the bath. It took some time before they managed to lift off their nightgown and step in, carefully not looking at themself. They looked at their feet, because feet were safe. Feet were universally awkward-looking. Feet weren’t the wrong shape or the wrong texture or simply wrong. Even if their feet were white at the heels, with shiny red blisters and great cracks along the underside, that was merely unfortunate, not damning.

The water was a light pink when they got out after a few half-hearted attempts at rubbing themself clean with the provided bar of soap, and then they stood – dripping – on the floor next to the towels. Tiredness threatened to overwhelm them. The combination of baseless stress and several late nights of seeing Toriel had all piled up into this, clearly. It was their fault. They had to ‘take care of themself’, but the idea was so ludicrous that they never bothered. If their body couldn’t serve them the way they needed, then it could go to hell. And them along with it.

They reached for a towel with fingers that couldn’t stay still.

“Is everything alright?” Asriel called. “Um…knock on something if you’re okay.”

They did, and set about trying to dry themself. It was a tiresome process, with far too much staring into space, but they eventually did it, imperfectly. Watery blood dripped down their thighs like red watercolour, and they knew they were ruining the rug. The sheets too, and their clothes, and the rugs on the other side of the room. And they were being unreasonable and unlikeable, such that even someone as desperate as Asriel shouldn’t have bothered with them.

They couldn’t find the will to do anything, and that was the problem. They were only proving themself to be even less use by letting themself become despondent. They reached for the clothes set out for them.

“Chara, am I…am I doing the right things?” His voice was muffled from behind the door. “I mean…am I pushing you to do things you don’t want to do? I know you aren’t exactly…articulate today, but please let me know if you want me to stop, or if you need space. I won’t be angry, so you can tell me.” A small scratch on the wood, but it was easily whisked away in the smooth sound of cloth crumpling.

“I really am only doing this because I want to help,” he said in a small voice. “I don’t understand what’s going on, or why you’re like this, but I…I don’t think it’s right to leave you alone when you’re in this state. But maybe that’s not what you’re supposed to do. I don’t know, I don’t have any experience…”

He sounded distressed. Chara looked at the breeches in their hands, the soft fawn turning dark where drops of water had hit it, and the cloth went taut under their fingers. They had to get dressed. They had already made an utter fool of themself, so they had to get dressed. They had to prove they were worth something, anything.

He was still talking. “I know nothing of your past, or what you think about, or anything – nothing concrete, but…please know that you can always tell me. It isn’t as if I have anyone else to tell your secrets to, and I wouldn’t anyway. I would treasure anything you gave me.”

It was imperative and pounding in their ears: they had already degraded themself to a degree they didn’t want to think about, so they had to prove themself. He’d already seen them in a state, so they had…to…

But why bother? There was no point to it, not in the end. Their hands went limp as they pulled the breeches to their hips. They’d fallen so far: there was no point in anything.

“I know you probably think a lot of…strange things about yourself, because of your past,” he said and they barely heard, “and while I don’t know the details, I’m confident in saying that a lot of it is probably wrong. I can’t really comfort you, or even say with surety that this is what you’re worrying about, since I don’t know, but I really think you’re an excellent person, Chara. I really think you’re fun to talk to and be around, when you let yourself relax.”

There was no point to anything, least of all them. No one needed or wanted them. _They_ barely wanted themself. But no, no: that wasn’t how it worked. There were ways in which things were done and they had to keep up appearances. Reaching for a shirt, they reminded themself of that. More to the point, they had to save everybody, since Asriel didn’t seem about to do it himself.

Even if they were useless, they had to try.

Even if they were a failure, they had to…

Asriel opened the door some time later to find them standing still, head hanging so their hair obscured their face, with the shirt on but not done up. Their muscles felt too heavy to lift. Their eyes were beginning to sting.

He walked over and stood before them after a short hesitation. “Can you lift your head up?”

They did, and he crouched to begin buttoning up their shirt. It was odd, to be at the same height as the top of his head. They could see the fine hair surrounding the bases of his horns, and the rough, chipped texture of the horns themselves. In contrast, his claws were cool and smooth – surprisingly gifted at doing up buttons without nicking their skin. They wanted to fall asleep again and forget this embarrassment had ever happened; his breath was hot and unsteady near their chest and it was calming. After some reflection swamped in the soupy desire to think about nothing at all, they decided that was good. They wanted to be calmed. They wanted to lean into warmth and forget that they were doing nothing to earn their place in the world.

It was sickeningly weak.

After their shirt, he did up their waistcoat and jacket, then their boots, and even brushed their hair for them. If they hadn’t felt like enough of a doll in the face of his size before, they did now, staring up at him with eyes that barely saw because it was just so tiring to even do that.

“Are you alright?” he asked, again.

He had no one but them and flowers. He was desperate, and so he clung to them, and they thought that might mean he wouldn’t reject them. It wasn’t fair to impose themself on him since he was only allowing it because of the dearth of choice, but they were weak and fragile and about to melt into bitter hatred of their deficiencies. And he might prefer this, when their family never had.

It therefore seemed the natural thing to lean their forehead on his chest, breathing in his smell and waiting for his stiff arms to wrap around them.

They were weak.

It took some time, but he did eventually hug them. He stroked their back and made soothing sounds and they squeezed their eyes closed.

They were weak.

“I’m so sorry, Chara,” he said softly. “It’s going to be alright. You’re safe here. You’re welcome here. We all want you here.”

They were weak, so they pretended – just for a minute – that that wasn’t because they were needed to help break the curse. They pretended it wasn’t just because they were the only company Asriel had had in living memory.

They pretended, but they had never been good at fooling themself into thinking positively.

 

“Are you feeling better?” he said, as he had said every half hour for the past four. He was sitting across from them at the dining table (since they’d refused to sit in the end chair, he’d moved it round for them), and very carefully looking at his hands rather than the food they were supposed to be eating. Or were eating. It was just slow progress.

“Mm,” they nodded. They drew a curve into the white sauce flecked with pepper on their plate, pushing it around, only not very far since there wasn’t enough free space. They’d had a few bites, and the pressure was already growling in their abdomen again, screaming at them to lie down. But they couldn’t very well do that.

“Are you sure?” Asriel didn’t look up at them to stare in disbelief, and they appreciated that. It was the small things, and his self-control (when he really had every right to treat them as if they were an idiot) was one of them.

“Mm,” they said with slightly more conviction.

“You don’t have to torture yourself,” he said gently. He was still looking at his hands: they looked up to check. The candlelight lit the edges of his fur like fire itself, a far cry from the soft glitter in the opaque vases lining the table. “You’ve already had soup, so I’m satisfied, at least. It’s okay if you can’t eat anything else right now. Just drink a bit more?”

Relieved to have been given permission, they put their fork down and reached for the water glass, draining it even though it tasted – and felt – utterly wrong. It was lukewarm and sharp in the wrong places, but they drank it. Once that was done, they got to their feet unsteadily, trying to look as though black dots hadn’t just exploded in their vision, but he was already getting up to help them. A reassuring hand on one shoulder, an understated yet unforgettable presence at their side for support, and the two of them made it back to Chara’s designated room without any fainting like earlier in the day.

“Would you like me to stay with you any longer?” he asked as neutrally as he probably could.

They stared at the door, summoning what composure they had. It wasn’t much, and it was cracked and undignified anyway. But they shook their head, turning to look up at him. “No. Thank you. I can’t thank you enough. I’ll be better tomorrow, I promise.” The last few words came out as whispers, and they cursed themself internally.

He frowned, and though he had shown them nothing but kindness all day, they felt a pang of terror, the sensation of freezing setting into their muscles. It was unfair, and they hated themself for it. He had been patience itself, such that they couldn’t even bring themself to believe it. They certainly didn’t think they deserved it.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” he said, infinitely gentle. “You can take your time. Please just make sure you’re properly healed.”

‘ _Healed’_ , as if it were an illness rather than an embarrassment.

“And you know…” he seemed to be twisting something in his mind. “I think I told you once, but I do have some links to the outside. I can…I can’t leave, but I can see the villages and send messages if I really need to, which I usually don’t. Obviously. It’s just this big mirror in one of the upper rooms, but…if it would make you feel better, I could…I suppose I could call someone from your family over, or one of your friends, or…something…” He bit his lip, still frowning.

“You don’t have to,” they said quickly, their nails biting into their palms. “Please don’t. It’s fine. Thank you.”

“Alright!” He seemed pleased, but when he smiled it was clumsy and malformed, like a predator seeking to calm its prey without any experience in doing so. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow, and I’ll come if you ever call me, so please don’t hesitate. Its’s part of the magic: I’ll hear you, and it won’t bother me. And I’ll…You know, I…” His words failed again, and then he said simply, “Goodnight.”

They nodded, and waited until he had gone down the corridor and out of sight before turning to their room.

It wasn’t an option to pretend the day hadn’t occurred. The idea was laughable: a dead-end solution to an endless problem. Asriel would not forget, and it was going to count against them. They went through the motions of undressing and washing their face, and they thought that if this was all they amounted to – this string of mistakes and indignities – then they would do better to die as soon as possible.

But he had smiled for them, and he always seemed pleased to see them. It was only because they were the first other person he had had any connection to for years, and that…that stung. They forced themself to swallow, staring out into a moonlit night. The illusion of being wanted was a powerful thing, and they didn’t want to remember that it _was_ an illusion.

No magic castles or curses could fool them into believing it wasn’t, though. So, stiffly, they finished their preparations and climbed into spotless sheets for bed.

It didn’t last long. Just a few hours later, they were woken up (gently, it felt to them) by the same compulsion they had felt the other nights. They sighed, because it was customary to do so, and they tried to wake themself up enough to go down to the gardens. It took unusually long, but eventually they were out in amongst hedges of holly, wrapped in a fur coat, standing in front of a single anemone.

Their immediate thoughts were that they didn’t want to do it, but the way they saw it, knowing was better than not, even if sheer apathy put up an excellent argument for going back indoors. Exhaustion provided superfluous support. It was only a game, after all: something to help them feel as if they were doing something, with no actual merit to it. But it was a game they had chosen to play, so they reached down and touched the great black huddle of stamens in the middle of the anemone, brushing along the petals that seemed a gradation of blue mixed with sea-green.

There was an odd sound, like the hitched breath of someone waking up, and then, “Who are you?”

Chara sighed internally and, unwillingly, began to explain.

 

Undyne was an odd one, in that she didn’t immediately believe everything she was told with a truly stunning (and somewhat concerning) show of trust, like the others had. It took some time to convince her of what was going on, made worse by the unfortunate fact that this was the first time she’d been woken up since she’d fallen down. Chara imagined that all the explaining – and the brisk night air, with its hint of frost – had to be good for them, but they only felt tired.

“And what, we’re supposed to just fucking take it?” Undyne snarled, again, since she seemed very good at snarling.

Chara sighed, again, since they definitely were very good at sighing, and tried to ignore how much their jaw ached from talking. That couldn’t be normal, but such was the way of things.

“There’s very little you can do,” they pointed out, running a finger down the icy stones in front of their crossed legs. “You’re a flower. You’re all flowers. I supposed you _will_ have to just fucking take it.”

“Like hell! You think I’m gonna let that stop me? I’ll fight whoever it takes to free us!” She went on like that for a minute or so, and Chara listened with more pity than interest. It wasn’t quite pathetic, but the whole affair was stirring up more misery in them than they felt comfortable with. They’d really rather have curled up and cried for a spell than continue listening to the fiery monster in front of them, but they didn’t have much choice. There were obligations to fulfil.

“Listen,” they said weakly, mildly relieved that there was no eye contact to maintain, “I know it’s got to be upsetting to find out that your entire population has been reduced to one. I truly am sorry about that, but whatever measures you were taking before you fell clearly didn’t work. That’s just how it is. You can’t do anything now.” Privately, they reflected that that sounded ideal.

Undyne evidently didn’t agree, and she made a sound not unlike a mix between disgust and gritting her teeth. “So nothing worked. Nothing, even with everyone working their hardest – _nothing_ worked?!”

“I’m sorry.”

She growled in frustration – a sound which took an alarming crescendo into a howl of rage. Chara winced, but did nothing. It wasn’t as if they could do anything except give her time to process things. Using their fingernail, they scraped patterns in the stone, trying to imagine how their sister would have handled the situation. With well-chosen words and the right mix of sympathy and practicality, knowing Beauty. She’d know what to do. And she wouldn’t feel this unfair exasperation, because she wouldn’t let personal feeling get in the way of what she felt she needed to do.

“The prince,” Undyne said suddenly. “What’s he like? Is he doing anything? He’s the last of us, isn’t he?”

“He is. He’s destined to save you all.”

“Oh.” A pause, and then, much happier, “Oh! Why didn’t you say so earlier? It’s not like I’m fine just sitting here, doing nothing, but if he’s destined for it, then I guess there’s hope.”

Chara begged to differ, but didn’t say as much.

“I mean, it’s still frustrating as fuck, and I’d be way happier fighting to the end, and it’s going to kill me just doing nothing while that tiny kid does it all himself, but…” she trailed off. “Nah, actually, changed my mind. Still not cool with it.”

“Oh dear.”

“There’s gotta be something I can do!”

“There isn’t.” If they sounded unnecessarily harsh, they didn’t bother to correct themself. They didn’t want to be here, and if they didn’t know that the guilt for leaving would be worse, then they would have left. They could barely keep their eyes open.

“Ugh, I wanna punch something! How hard is it to just go find some humans and kick their asses until they take us to the mages? Uh, no offence.”

“None taken, but that plan wouldn’t work anyway. The mages who cast the curse are long dead. Apparently they left a single way to break the curse, but if Asriel knows it then he hasn’t used it.”

Undyne appeared to think about this. When she did speak again, just as Chara was falling into the welcoming and welcome arms of sleep, she seemed calmer. “Okay. Okay, fine, we’re all fucked. For now. But if you ever find anything out, or if you’ve got something I can do to help, tell me, yeah? I wanna do my bit too. I want to protect everyone who can’t do it for themselves. Nobody deserved this, and I’m gonna make the people who did it _pay_.” She took a moment before she corrected herself, “Or at least set everyone free or whatever, since the humans are dead. Still wish I could have got my hands round their fucking necks for this.”

Chara blinked, since it served the dual purpose of expressing surprise and waking them up slightly. “Quite the hero of justice.”

“Anything wrong with that?”

“No, not really. I just wonder if you actually want that kind of life. One where you save everyone, and everyone’s hopes and dreams lie on you and you alone.”

Undyne laughed in a vaguely mocking way. “That’s what you think it is? Nah, kid, that’s not it at all. When you’re a hero, everyone’s hopes and dreams spur you on! They’re your strength, not your chains!”

She really seemed to believe it.

“Sounds nice,” Chara said for a lack of anything else to say. They didn’t want to _say_ anything: they wanted to go and curl up in bed and scratch their newly-returned cramps out with their bare nails if that was what it took. It was all nonsense, anyway. Expectations would only weigh you down, and when you inevitably failed to meet them, you had to deal with the mess. People were selfish in _expecting_ things of others and then acting disappointed when those expectations were betrayed. The idea that someone might take comfort in it baffled Chara.

In reflection, they thought that might be their problem.

But that didn’t matter: they were too tired for that sort of thing to matter. It was hardly going to shock them if any more of their glaring flaws came to light, after the day they’d had. So they yawned, forcing their eyes open, and waited for Undyne to say something else.

She didn’t keep them waiting long. “Are all humans like you?”

They waited for her to clarify.

Again, it came quickly. “Since you’re all strong, I figured you’d be full of energy and fire and stuff. You’re not.”

“I’m not. I’m not strong either.”

“Stronger than a monster.” This was said with bitterness.

“If I have a weapon on me, perhaps.”

“And are all humans like that?”

“No.”

More silence, until Undyne spat, “Too bad. Maybe if you had been, we wouldn’t all be fucking flowers.”

“Maybe.” It was getting difficult to think properly: they just wanted to sleep. The anemone in front of them was blurring into smears of black and blue. Time drifted around lazily, and they couldn’t think of anything to say.

When Undyne spoke next, her voice was different, but that might have been simply because of the silence that had drawn out between the two of them since. “Look…Chara, right? You said you met Papyrus and his lazy-ass brother, yeah? Do you…d’you think you could do me a favour?”

“Certainly.”

“Could you maybe try and find some people for me? Find out if they’re alright? I mean…I know the queen’s okay, ’cause you said, but could you find Asgore for me? Make sure he’s not beating himself up over this? And it’s not like we can really spend a lot of time beating ourselves up or anything when we’re ‘sleeping’,” she sneered the word, “but, just…check he’s okay. The prince’ll probably know where he is, anyway, right? It’s not that big of a favour.”

Chara couldn’t find the energy to correct her and say that they had no intention at all of letting Asriel know they knew about the flowers. They had no mind to put themself into that conversation, whether or not it was rapidly becoming clear to them that he might not react as badly as they had once thought he would have.

“And…” Undyne said in a smaller voice. “Could you find this one girl, too? Called Alphys, stutters a lot, into all that science shit, super cute, doesn’t have much confidence. She was working with Gaster towards the end, and I’m worried she’s going to end up thinking really dumb stuff like it’s her fault the experiments didn’t work and save us all. She’s that kind of person,” she explained, with the air of someone who had never been ‘that kind of person’ in her life.

“I’ll check on them if you like,” Chara said drowsily. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to find them, but,” –they yawned– “I’ll try.”

“Thanks,” she said, smiling. She seemed to have the sort of grin that twisted her every word, and it wasn’t overly unpleasant. Very little was, with sleep coming hard and fast. It didn’t really matter anyway, Chara reassured themself, but even they weren’t sure what they were referring to, or if it was really true. Perhaps everything just mattered too much, though it didn’t take a genius to understand that that was true. They were only using those words as a mantra because it suited them to, just as it suited them to pretend that they were an unfeeling husk of a human being. Realistically speaking, it wasn’t like that at all, and they hated it, but in a way removed from the forefront of their mind. That part was taken up with insistent nothingness.

They wanted to sleep.

Undyne was talking, but the sound faded in and out of their ears irritatingly, out of harmony with the uneven focussing in their eyes. At least here was something that _really_ didn’t matter. They let their head loll forwards, hands curled on the frozen stone, and fell asleep.

It was unusually deep for them. Ordinarily, they woke at the slightest noise, but they slept through a great many things that night. The sound of their name being called – first confused, then fearful – for one. For another, the slow, cautious movements of another’s arms picking them up and cradling them as one would a fractious cat. Being brought back to their room didn’t stir them; nor did a tumble of gentle words and the soft press of a palm against their cheek, worshipful. They slept through it all, despite how much Asriel secretly wished they’d wake up at just at the right time.

It was a pity, really.


	6. To Find Salvation in a Demon

There were a great many things that hadn’t been allowed, especially before the move to the country. It was all in the name of propriety, Chara supposed – or knew – and they were used to it. Ways to speak and eat and move: those were normal. There was nothing wrong with it, and they knew from experience that neither their brother nor their sister (nor, indeed, the other children of their age they’d known in the city or the village) found it a trial. The difficulty was really that, when you were so distressingly deficient in every way, it became tempting to cling to the rules that were given you so you could at least pretend to be proper.

And so principles were sewn together, tighter and tighter.

They stared blankly at the wallpaper, curled up on a sofa of a revolting shade of puce, holding their hands together in their lap. They were playing a game with themself. It was pleasant to lie on the sofa, their head on an armrest and their legs tucked up against the other – damask skirts pooling in their lap – so they weren’t going to move. Their every instinct was warning them that it was unseemly, that they had to sit up properly, that they shouldn’t let their skirts fall away from their legs like that, but they weren’t going to move. They concentrated on the wallpaper instead, on its bizarre tracings of what seemed to be oak leaves and rushes in charming disarray.

Diverting though that was, they looked up when the door opened. Asriel brought a silver tray (complete with rose-patterned china tea set) that looked no better than a doll’s in his hands, and he set it down on the low table beside the sofa.

“I think it should be alright,” he said, peering critically at the teapot.

“You could have just asked for it, couldn’t you?”

“I could have, but it’s nicer to make it myself, sometimes. As much as I can call it ‘myself’,” he grimaced, which was no joke on a face like his. “The castle provides the tea and water and heat, and the clean crockery, and biscuits, and washes up, and does absolutely everything. I had to fight it over the tea set, though. It kept insisting on one patterned with these hideous yellow flowers.”

Chara nodded vacantly. “You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”

“I, uh…” he laughed nervously. “I did just imply it wasn’t any trouble at all, but I’ll say it again. You were close to catching your death of cold out there last night: it’s the least I can do to try and keep you healthy. Humans need a lot of work, don’t they?”

“I suppose they do,” they said, taking the offered cup of tea (without the milk and sugar he added into his own cup, which was about the size of a teapot in its own right). “Thank you.”

“Um. Speaking of that, I…”

They looked up at him, catching black eyes and holding them. For a while, nothing was said, and since he didn’t seem likely to change that, they took a sip of tea. “You?” they prompted.

“Never mind.” He drank too, dropping his gaze to the armrests of his oversized chair.

It was fairly clear to them that he knew what they’d been doing the previous night. They had very little recollection of it beyond the cold steadily fading away into numbness as Undyne’s voice faded into nothing, but he’d told them the most part when they’d woken up. With the amount of sidelong glances and stuttered words he had given them, it was nigh-on impossible that he didn’t know they knew about the flowers. Or at least, he would have had to be spectacularly dense to not realise.

But he hadn’t said anything, and that suited them. There wasn’t anything that needed to be said about it, not really. They still felt out of themself, though they were coming to realise that perhaps there wasn’t a ‘themself’ to go back to.

“The tea’s good,” they said presently, putting the cup down and curling back up into the unyielding cushions of the sofa. They could just see out of the window beyond their feet, opening onto a balcony. “It’s so quiet here.”

“Is it?”

They nodded without looking over at him. “There aren’t any insects or birds or animals to speak of. Without the wind or creaks of the castle, it would be totally silent, wouldn’t it? Doesn’t it feel like you’re the last person ali…” They cut themself off quickly, but he didn’t seem to notice the insensitivity.

“I suppose it does, but I’m used to it.” He screwed up his face in thought. “It would be weirder for me if there _were_ creatures running rampant all over the place. Isn’t it unnerving? I’d just get muddled over which were normal and which weren’t. I know about animals and so on _vaguely_ , from engravings and paintings and mentions in books, but there are so many names, I can never remember them all.”

“Do you know what a goat is?”

He thought for a second, and then crumpled, dejected. “The name’s familiar, but I can’t think of what one would look like, I’m sorry…”

“No, that’s alright. It didn’t really matter.”

“If you say so. Is it a problem? The silence, I mean.” He brought the massive cup to his lips, and it was mesmerising to watch how he moved his unwieldy teeth with apparent ease. Chara looked away before he could catch them staring. He went on, “The piano used to play more, but I think it didn’t want to spook you, so it hasn’t been doing it recently. The castle could probably imitate bird sounds if you wanted them…?”

“That sounds like it would spook me more, but thank you.” They put their cup down firmly on its saucer and shuffled their legs around so they were sitting properly. There was nothing to be done about the rest of them, but they could sit properly – they made sure of that. With fists balled in their skirts, they swallowed.

“I have to apologise for yesterday,” they said firmly, and his hands went a little stiff from what they could see of him. No matter. “Thinking about it, I can’t apologise enough. You shouldn’t have had to see that – let alone deal with it – and I’m so sorry. There’s nothing I can do to make up for it but promise that I’ll never let it happen again, so-”

“Chara!” he cried, and he sounded distraught.

They faltered in the script, looking up at him hesitantly. He was wearing such an odd expression. It made them want to wipe it away, make him smile again.

“You don’t have to apologise,” he said once he was somewhat more composed. “We’re…um, I don’t want to presume, but aren’t we friends? Isn’t this what friends do for each other? I…I can’t say I’m happy that you were like that yesterday, and it worries me a lot, I won’t lie, but that doesn’t mean I blame you for it. Humans are different to monsters, and I can accommodate that!”

“But this isn’t normal for humans,” they said dully.

“Oh. Well, I…I think that just means that you need more support to help you with it, doesn’t it? I don’t really understand, but I’m willing to learn, and I don’t mind. I want to help, I really do! I want you to lean on me, if you don’t mind. If it’s not…totally hateful to you, I’d like to help you as much as you need.”

“Hateful,” they repeated.

“Hateful,” he confirmed, quieter, and didn’t elaborate.

“It isn’t hateful,” they said, quite truthfully. The chillingly obvious future at the end of the line _was_ hateful, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was being absurd. Or, no – he was being naïve, which they should have expected. It was a noble aspiration, but no one could really want to stay with them and look after them. For the first few weeks it might be entertaining, even endearing, but that would be ruined the second their more unpleasant habits came out of hiding. And for him, who had already seen them, it would be over once he realised that humans weren’t like them. Not normally. They would no longer be a novelty, and he’d see how undesirable their company was. That was just to be expected. He was just trying to be helpful.

A small smile graced his monstrous lips. “Well, if it isn’t, then could you do me the favour of never apologising like that again? Small apologies are fine, of course, but we’re friends, and I’ve told you I’m happy to help however I can, so please don’t…don’t do that again. You don’t need to.”

Certainly they needed to, but they thought it best to humour him. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” he said with relief. “And you know, you can tell me anything you might want to. I’m happy to listen. You wouldn’t be bothering me, if you were wondering about that.” He smiled, his black, black eyes squeezing up and almost glittering with uncontained warmth. “I’d like to know more about you, no matter what it is.”

It was increasingly difficult to believe he was lying, or even misguided, when he smiled like that.

“You’re being unreasonable,” they said, colder than he deserved. To make up for it (and the flash of worry they’d seen on his face), they added, “I don’t mind it, you understand, I just…I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond to that.”

“You don’t need to respond at all!” he said cheerfully. He settled back against the chair, draining his formidable tea cup. They sipped at theirs more sedately, turning the idea over in their mind. He really seemed to be genuine: it was worrying.

Putting his cup down, he said, “Don’t yell at me for asking again – though I suppose that’s not really likely for you – but are you feeling alright now? Or rather, is there anything I can do? Would you like more time alone?”

“You’re doing nothing wrong.”

He looked at them. “That’s a strange way of putting it. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Eyeing them a moment more, he evidently decided to believe them. Playing with his lace cuffs, he said, “If you’re sure, then…would you like to go to the lake today? There aren’t any, um, fish, but it’s still pretty. Or we could stay inside if you’d prefer? There’s always so much to do.”

That seemed like a lie to them, but they didn’t say as much. “The lake sounds nice,” they said instead. The second they had, a scarlet pelisse appeared nonchalantly on the table, as if it had always been folded up there. Chara looked at it.

“You’d better wear it,” Asriel said solemnly. “You might not be allowed outside if you don’t. It’s cold today, and you’re still recovering.”

“I have a cold, not hypothermia,” they groused, but he held the coat out for them and they put it on anyway, doing up the buttons themself.

“Hypothermia?” he asked, holding his arm in a way that seemed to suggest that they were welcome to take it if they were that way inclined, but of course if they didn’t then he was merely stretching.

“Don’t worry about it. It just means I’m in no danger.” They considered his arm.

“I think falling asleep outside on a night so cold your eyelashes frost over might constitute danger.”

“My eyelashes?”

“Not quite the point.”

“No. Well, thank you, again. But it’s over and I don’t need to be coddled.” It was humiliating, even if he seemed dead-set on sparing them any humiliation with his assurances that it was ‘no trouble at all’.

“Can I do it anyway, even if you don’t need it?”

They regarded him and, finally, put a gloved hand on his arm. “I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

He – too busy beaming with a truly alarming display of teeth and unbridled happiness – didn’t seem to mind, but simply led them from the room.

Showing a terrible lack of discernment, he chose to spend the greater part of the next few days with them (more so than he ever had before), and while he never veered too far into coddling, it was a close-run thing. The castle was already bad enough – bringing anything they could have wanted at the merest word – but he was always ready with suggestions and ideas and uncontested patience with whatever they wanted to do. That, naturally, included wanting time away from him, though his disappointment when they brought it up didn’t pass unnoticed. He was too expressive, especially for a beast.

But bring it up they did, because company was suffocating, even the most agreeable company they had ever known. Some days after they had fallen asleep in the garden, at the end of an afternoon in the library (he’d been distracted by something, and had barely turned a page), they took their leave of him to explore the fourth and final floor. Presumably there was an attic above, and there was certainly access to the rooftops, but it was essentially the last of the residential floors, and while they had absolutely no hope that they’d find any convenient clues, they did want to see more of it than they had during his brief tours.

This, predictably, came to very little. The floors weren’t all identical, but it seemed that way: there were only small differences in décor and style depending on which wing you were in, and the same designs of room kept reappearing. It didn’t matter too much: they were just making sure. It was the completionist in them, and the desire to go back to normality, even if they weren’t sure what normality was. They couldn’t imagine how they had once lived a relatively uneventful life with their family, since they couldn’t even trace their way back to what they had been before their unfortunate episode several days previously.

Or perhaps they were making far too much of nothing. It couldn’t matter, in the scheme of things, if they were slightly different one way or another. The problem was really that they were utterly unused to showing themself to others (others who weren’t their family and thus already used to their constantly disappointing comportment), and even less used to the idea that there might be someone who didn’t mind. They lamented his bad taste, but also felt something not unlike gratitude. Of course it had to be gratitude: they couldn’t be so callous as to brush off everything he’d done for them without being grateful for it.

And really, they reflected as they walked into the stony walls of the eastern tower, there might be no harm in simply being honest, if he seemed to want that. It wasn’t as though they’d lose anything if he became disgusted by them and refused to see them.

They found their lips curling up at their own outrageous dishonesty. Well, one did have to laugh.

Once in the tower, everything was perfectly uninteresting until the room second to the main floor. The door was open, for a start. It looked lived-in, too: the other rooms weren’t covered in dust (as if the castle would allow that), but they lacked the smell of habitation, and this one had it, so they went in. 

The room was light and airy, with a giant window that opened out onto the gardens, and, more specifically, onto Toriel’s flower in particular. Chara began to understand. The centre of the room was empty but for an unusually tall easel and a basket of painting supplies on the rug beside it. The easel had a canvas on it, though it only showed a brief sketch of some landscape. They turned away from it, to the bureau.

This was covered in paper, mostly with colours painted in odd splodges or lines. It took them a moment to realise that they were colour tests. Underneath them, there was a wad of sheets tied together in some inexpert binding, a far cry from the books stacked neatly in the shelves above the bureau. Mildly curious, Chara picked it up, checked that the paint was all dried, and set it down on the desk, flicking through pages of huge, loopy handwriting.

It seemed to be poetry, ostensibly Asriel’s. They didn’t have much experience with the stuff, and had certainly never written it, but they turned back to an earlier page with comfortingly short lines scribbled (and occasionally crossed out) on it, and began to read, since that seemed the natural thing to do.

 

_And lo! The mighty beast rode out_

_On steed of white and gold._

_His foes, he drove into a rout,_

_And so his tales were told._

_The beast! they cried. The beast is come!_

_And fell down at his feet_

_To liken him unto the sun_

_And all his desires meet._

_Prince Hyperdeath was loved by all,_

_And–_

 

They turned the page hurriedly. Inexperienced with poetry they might be, but they knew enough to be embarrassed and ashamed to have read something so obviously written when he was younger. They hoped. They were fairly certain, since the handwriting grew progressively neater and smaller as they flicked through the pages. There was a recurring hero, pages of verses that seemed almost jaunty in their rhythm, and an awful lot of what looked like chivalry and knights errant and nonsensical levels of idealism.

There must have been hundreds of those poems, but closer to the end of the wad of paper, the ballads were broken up by different shapes and subjects. The first person appeared, as did decidedly unglorious images. Distinctly worrying ones, at points. Chara skimmed them, their brow furrowing, until they settled on the most recent page and paused to read it.

 

_As though a rose entrapped by lifeless thorns,_

_I find myself in days that drag and blur._

_With claws, with frightful teeth and curling horns,_

_It’s clear to me I’m nothing like they were._

_No drought of books; no dearth of which to read,_

_But words stare back with judgement and sweet lies._

_They weave the rules: my life is theirs to lead,_

_But what are rules to lives unmatched in size?_

 

_So read I will, of futures not to be,_

_And dream of what my eyes will never see._

_Engravings paired with paintings show me true:_

_That all might quail when faced with one like me._

_No matter, since I’ll never meet with you_

_But stay here still, in wait eternally._

_I would as lief be kept encaged if I –_

_A prince of wilted futures, withered hope –_

_Should find myself in chains anew, and tied_

_With love and duty there to weave the rope._

 

_But years will pass as if they weren’t at all,_

_And I will stagnate, hold my breath, and fall._

 

Chara’s fingers stayed, unsteady, on the page for a long time. They knew, as soon as they’d read it, that they shouldn’t have. Soberly, they closed the pages and put the book of poems back, scattering some loose sheets over it, then turned to the door with their hands on their hips, twisting in the fabric of their trousers.

“Out of interest,” they said to the air, “did you open that door on purpose? Did you make me find that?”

Naturally, there was no response, but Chara fancied they could feel an atmosphere of admonished shame. But that was frankly impossible, even for a terribly over-powered curse, so they dropped their arms and stalked out of the room, and if they had been of a different disposition, they would have muttered dark things about interfering castles with no sense of privacy.

Once out of the tower, they were ushered (it felt to them) downstairs, presumably for dinner, but they took their time about it. Magic castles could keep food warm and Asriel could wait, so they dragged their heels down the stairs, thinking.

Not once had they consciously thought that he might have worries he wanted to hide – or at least not tell them about – because they simply hadn’t thought. They hadn’t considered it. He had been a constant, weathering their behaviour with a need to please, but they’d been an idiot to think that didn’t mean he might have his own worries. Selfish, too. But it wasn’t the time to punish themself: they wanted…what did they want?

To understand, perhaps. To hear from him, face to face, what he wanted to tell them. To listen – as he had listened – and help in some way, even if it was only as a bottle for him to pour his worries into. And it was strange, since they’d never felt overly concerned by others before. But now, far from feeling indifferent towards what he’d obviously thought important enough to merit poetry, they wanted to know more.

He wanted them to talk to him about what was troubling them? Nothing could be easier, if he reciprocated. And clearly he could. Give and take, with no charity or saviour: they thought they could stomach it better like that. It was inevitable that they were going to be totally honest with him eventually, anyway. At this rate, it was inevitable.

Dinner was a mostly silent affair, with him in his thoughts and them in theirs, trying to think of how best to start it. They went through several ideas before landing on the one they thought would be the least painful overall, and since they were aware they had to do it while they still had the nerve, they decided to force it. Putting their knife and fork together on a half-finished plate, they propped their elbows up and looked across the table at Asriel. He didn’t seem as distracted as he had been before, but rather nervous; he played with the hem of his brocade waistcoat idly, fiddling with the last button. Around the two of them, there was only light from the row of candles set up along the table – the chandeliers and fireplaces were unlit. It seemed a strange choice, but it added atmosphere, and that was probably all the reason the castle needed. They swallowed.

“Would you like to tell stories?”

Eyes almost wide enough to see the whites, he blinked at them. “Pardon?”

“Stories. I don’t feel like leaving yet.”

“Oh. Um, yeah, if that’s something you want to do.” He seemed to perk up a little. “I’d like to hear one, if you don’t mind!”

“Well, I can’t promise it’ll be a very happy story,” they smiled. “It’s something we used to hear around the village a lot, you see. It’s the story of a mildly unfortunate family. This family was once prosperous and generally happy together. A mother, a father, a son, a daughter, and they were comfortable, but you know, that’s exactly when everything goes wrong in these kinds of stories. Because the mother grew pregnant again, and she happened to give birth to a demon child. As you can imagine, no one was very happy with the situation, but they all tried their best. The child did too: it saw how its siblings behaved, and it imitated them. All in the name of being a good child, I should think.

“The demon child grew up, and it grew into its name. It began to cause trouble: chronically ill, its parents had to work harder to pay for its medicine, and its siblings were obliged to look after it while its parents worked, so they couldn’t play like normal children. Resentment festered, but then, it does, doesn’t it? Humans are like that. Even once the demon child was older, it caused trouble: it went into horrific fits and had to be shut away in the house to keep it from causing a scandal. When it was five, the mother left.”

They picked up their fork, moving it back and forth aimlessly with a slight scratching sound on the plate. “One would imagine she gave reasons, but the children never found out, because children shouldn’t. They were all too young to know: they could only share in whispers what they gathered. That she had felt suffocated, that she had never wanted the marriage to start with, that she had only borne children to please her husband, that the frugal life needed to keep the demon child was too much for her. They couldn’t afford her pleasures anymore, or her husband wouldn’t give her the money for them, and she left. It was a bit premature, really: the child grew out of its illness when it was seven, and things began to improve. Financially, I mean. You couldn’t really say that things improved otherwise.

“The daughter – seeing how tired her father always was – shaped herself into a miniature of her mother. She forced herself to become perfection in word and deed, in appearance and character, to please him. It worked. The son – seeing all the affection flung on his sister, seeing how he had been robbed of opportunities all his life – grew bitter and hardened. He struck out, throwing himself into diversions to distract himself, but always longing for his father’s approval. The demon child – without the strength to change itself or pretend it didn’t care – rotted.

“Perhaps that’s a tad dramatic,” they reflected, taking a sip of water and staring at their plate, as they had been doing for the last five minutes. “But it didn’t take to things well. Too much to get used to, too many whispers of blame in its ears, that sort of thing. Nothing it did worked like it would for its siblings, but isn’t that to be expected? _They_ belonged, after all. At any rate, it tried its best, but its best was far from enough, as you might well expect. When it was fourteen, it tried to help its father with business, and the whole thing went tolerably well until a single misplaced letter, a single thought that it couldn’t matter too much. A deadline was passed without action – since the father didn’t know about it – and he was ruined. The whole family was, to be more accurate.

“And then,” they sighed, “it was the end. They moved to the country to avoid total destitution, and everyone was ripped from their roots. Whatever the demon child did, it wasn’t enough: it had brought too much misery on its family already. It was damned. But they didn’t say as much. It had to find out by listening through floorboards to shouts and desperate hisses to keep quiet; through glares thrown its way whenever it made the slightest mistake; through the tired lines around its sister’s eyes as she tried to care for it in its fits. That was quite an accomplishment, actually,” they said with an air of admiration. “She was too good-natured to let anything show around other people, but it was too much even for her.”

They drank again, draining their glass, and it was immediately refilled. Curling their mouth into a smile – not totally forced – they looked up at Asriel. For someone usually so expressive, he looked ashen but otherwise blank.

After a decent length of silence had passed, he asked, “What happened after that?”

“After? Oh, they went on with their lives, I suppose. Village tales are like that: all moral and no conclusion. Can’t trust them,” they nodded sagely.

He looked down, tension drawn into face. Around them, the candles seemed to flicker, sending shadows dancing over his fur. Running a finger down the condensation on their glass, they propped their head up on one hand and looked at him, willing him to look back. He did, and they grinned. “But, well. You understand anyway, don’t you?”

Saving them from having to spell it out for him, he nodded. He was oddly quiet, but they supposed that was to be expected. They had, in fact, expected it, so they said, “It’s your turn.”

“Huh?”

“Your turn,” they repeated. “I did mine, so you do yours. Surely you have a story, somewhere?”

It took several long, drawn-out moments of eye contact before he nodded slowly, reaching out to pick up an apple and turn it around in his hands, watching the designs he scratched into the skin with his claws. A thin droplet of juice fell on the tablecloth, and he started.

“It’s…well, it’s not a village story since I’ve never…But it’s a story I found in the library somewhere.”

They nodded encouragingly.

“It’s about a princess who was cursed at birth. It wasn’t really anybody’s fault, it was just that there was…there was an evil fairy who flew into a rage and cursed her, and her whole kingdom along with it. These things happen. And she grew up, and years passed, and nobody _really_ thought anything was going to come of it. Even when the effects of the curse were so blatant they would have had to be blind not to see, they thought it was going to be okay. When the world’s falling down around you, you concentrate on the small things. You don’t see the whole picture, because the whole picture is terrifying. You laugh, and work, and live, and die. So the curse spread.

“Eventually, the whole kingdom was engulfed in it, just like the fairy had wanted. And then, only the princess was left. That was her curse, I guess: a kingdom in tatters around her, a castle wrapped up in thorny vines to keep her trapped, and eternal life to think about it all. There was – they said – a way to break the curse, but it was long lost to her. I mean, even if she did find it, it would probably be something like true love’s kiss, wouldn’t it? So she stayed caged up, with no knowledge of the outside world but what stories she had left, and occasional glimpses through the thorns.”

The apple was a mess of bruised flesh and strips of skin lying on the table, and he went silent. They watched him gouge into the apple, and asked, “What happened next?”

“Nothing, really,” he shrugged. “Nothing at all.”

Chara nodded, swirling their water around in the glass. There was a bottle of wine a little further down the table and they felt tempted, but didn’t reach for it. Now probably wasn’t the time.

There didn’t seem to be anything to say, since they were keeping up the veils of fiction and fantasy. See-through, of course, but that was the point. Their grip grew a fraction tighter. The poetry – incriminating as it was – hadn’t prepared them for the smile plastered on his face, or the way he kept blinking, candlelight reflected brightly in black eyes. They had the oddest feeling: that they needed to make him smile again, that they couldn’t stand him being upset. But there was nothing someone like them could do.

He spoke first. “Chara, would you…would you humour me for a bit?”

“If you like. Isn’t that what I’ve been doing all this time?”

He smiled. “Maybe. If you don’t mind, could you go up to your room and then meet me in the music room?”

An odd request, but they presumed he had some kind of plan behind it. He wanted them to – and they wanted to please him, and not just because he spent all his time trying to please them – so the idea of refusing didn’t quite occur to them as an option.

“If you like,” they repeated, and got up from the table.

 

It was an odd dress, if it could even be called that. A tight bodice in charming shades of dark green, tightened by two rows of buttons going down their chest with folded satin between, reflecting the light prettily, and then the skirt flowed out behind them. But _only_ behind them: it was open at the front. They wore high breeches in cream, fawn and oak-coloured boots that laced up to their knees, and white gloves stretching up almost to their shoulders. They’d found it all folded lovingly on their bed, topped by a thick choker of black satin crowned with a single rose in red cloth. There had been a whole array of silver chains and ribbons to match the silver buttons, but since those had looked to be for their hair, they’d left them. They’d never been gifted at styling hair: tying it up simply was the best they could do.

Once the ensemble was on, they took a moment to calm themself down before leaving their room. It wouldn’t do to think too deeply about anything. They didn’t want to, not tonight. Footsteps echoing in the corridors strangely empty of even the smallest of creaks, they strode down to the music room.

Asriel was waiting awkwardly, leaning against the piano, and didn’t seem to have changed, which struck Chara as a bit unfair. Though, considering his size, it was probably more of a hassle for him than them. When he looked up at their entrance, his eyes widened a fraction and, for perhaps five long seconds, they stared at each other.

“What did you want me for?” they asked, moving from the doorway to stand by the row of chairs at the back of the room. His gaze followed them, which seemed shockingly unnecessary, but not entirely unwelcome.

“I…” He took a moment to find his voice. “This is going to sound bizarre, I know, but…I was wondering if you might like to dance.”

The suggestion came as a shock, and their lack of a response was all the excuse he needed to rush in with apologies. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said, waving his hands in front of him. “I know you don’t really like to touch me, and that’s perfectly understandable, don’t worry!” They stiffened, but he wasn’t looking at them so he continued, “But I thought you were maybe getting more used to me, so you wouldn’t mind as much, and then with…with the stories, I thought it might be nice to forget about it, and I’m not very _good_ at dancing but I still like it, so I thought…wrongly, probably. Sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

“No, it’s alright.” They collected themself, walking over, and frowned up at him. “I think I should be the one apologising. I didn’t realise…” –they clenched their hands in front of them– “I didn’t think you’d take it personally. It isn’t that I don’t like to touch you, it’s just…I’m not completely comfortable with being touched. That’s all. It isn’t you. Did you…Did you think it was like that, all this time?”

He laughed, or gave the impression of laughing. “Well, it’s understandable, isn’t it? I wouldn’t blame you.”

“You should. If that’s how I’d thought, you should have blamed me.”

Behind him, before he could collect his inarticulate sounds together into words, the piano began to play. It was something lilting and droopy, and Chara marched over to slam the fall board down and put a stop to it. They turned back to Asriel, smiling softly, and reached out to take his hand. It dwarfed theirs, but came willingly when they lifted it up between them.

The candles were just flickering into life as the sky outside the window was drained of the last of its orange. The smell of brass, of oil, of wood wrapped around Chara and it was comforting. It was safe. It was safe to open their mouth and speak the truth. “I’d like to dance, if you really want to. But I’ve never done it before.”

“That’s okay,” he said a little breathlessly, apparently unable to blink for fear of breaking eye contact with them. “I’ve never danced with another person, so we can learn together.”

There was a second more of uncertainty, and then he looked away, flustered, and picked up a book of sheet music from a nearby surface, putting it on the piano. Any worries that Chara might have ruffled the castle’s pride disappeared neatly as the piano began to play once he lifted up the fall board again.

It was a self-assured piece: a strong rhythm, a touch faster than Chara would have chosen, but once the melody fell into place, that didn’t matter. It seemed to be for four hands and the castle, or the curse, or whatever it was, rose to the occasion beautifully, though perhaps with more vigour than finesse. That didn’t matter either. Asriel held their hand nervously, and since he didn’t seem about to do it himself, they led him to the middle of the room.

The first order of business – as the music plodded along happily – was to put their hands on his shoulder and waist respectively, only they ran into a problem there since they couldn’t actually reach. This was remedied easily enough: one hand on his waist, the other held in his, and he held their entire side with unexpected tenderness. Then they began to move and it was ungainly, clumsy, out of time, but slowly improving. There were none of the easily recognisable moves of a waltz, but there was more energy, and though Chara found their breath running short embarrassingly quickly, they couldn’t help but smile.

Their feet darted in between his, their skirt swirled behind them as he turned them by the hand, their cheeks began to ache with smiling as they looked up at him, mirroring his expression without even thinking about it. The music was as good a guide as they needed; the slightest movement from either was a hint to the other, and the two of them began to move with some semblance of grace. It was nothing like the parties they could remember seeing through banisters and the cracks in doors, but then, they hadn’t thought it would be. It was so much more than that: with a lively tune skipping into irregular beats, just repetitive enough to give them something to work with, they were moving together, regardless of size, and – as Asriel picked them up effortlessly – they flung their arms around his neck and laughed.

His smile froze, but he kept turning, his arms under their legs and behind their back, looking at them in wonder. It occurred to them that it might be the first time he’d seen them laugh since their disastrous first night. So they ran fingers through the fur at the back of his head, smiling at him as warmly as they could. He needed to know that if they were laughing – if they felt bubbly and excited for the first time in months – it was because of him, and everything he’d done for them. Everything he made them feel, with less and less guilt on their part.

It was a beautiful, reckless kind of self-delusion, but from the way he held them, they knew that it probably wasn’t delusion after all. That was terrifying, but – as they stared at each other, inexplicably fascinated, and as the music faded into something gentle – it wasn’t terror they felt.

It was a long time before he put them down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chara's outfit is over [here](http://eristastic.tumblr.com/post/148244759712/designs-for-chapter-6-of-necropolis-i-did-do).
> 
> The story scene (and chapter title) is ‘inspired’ by a favourite scene of mine from Aya Kanno’s [Requiem of the Rose King](http://myanimelist.net/manga/61097/Baraou_no_Souretsu) (to be fair, most of the scenes in that are favourites of mine, but shhh). I did do my best to keep this one unique, though.
> 
> (I should also apologise for the poetry because it's been a while since I studied it or read any)


	7. Victims of Our Own Emotions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how much people expect regular updates, but either way, I'm sorry this one is so late. I'm sorry too that the next one is likely going to be even later.   
> Either way, we've got maybe two or three chapters left to go, after this one.

Fittingly enough, it was a beautiful night. The snow that had been threatened all evening had broken some time after Chara and Asriel had stopped dancing and relaxed into conversation. Now, past midnight, snowflakes floated down gently, and though the moonlight wasn’t particularly strong, it was strong enough, and the gardens were characteristically peaceful.

Except, predictably, the corner Chara was crouching in as they waited in alarm for Alphys to control herself. It had already been about two minutes of gushing, by their reckoning, but they weren’t about to say that.

“Oh g-gosh!” the sunnily yellow begonia in front of them squealed, giving the impression that she’d be clutching her hands to her face if she had either hands or a face. “D-did she _really_ ask you to check on me? _Undyne_? Oh my god, oh my _god_ …”

It was the same thing she’d been saying ever since Chara’s rushed explanation, but slightly calmer, so they decided it was a good time to try and answer her. Hugging their pelisse closer to them – snowflakes already dusting the leaf-green fabric and sparkling under the garden’s lamplight – they said, “She did. She said she was worried about you: she thought, in whatever state of stasis you go into while asleep, you’d be punishing yourself for not working hard enough. I can’t remember the wording exactly, but she seemed to think that would be a very bad course of action to take.”

Alphys required a few more moments to collect herself, and Chara was happy to give them to her. They didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing: whether in the city or the village, they hadn’t had close friends to discuss romance with, and while Beauty had had her pick of suitors, she had never had a particular affection for anyone, preferring to concentrate on housework and pleasing their father. So Chara had no experience at all with people gone positively batty with young love. Thrust into the situation with no warning, they didn’t even know how to start.

The oddly geometrical petals of the begonia seemed to shiver and Alphys breathed heavily for some time, as if she was controlling herself. Then, “A-and…if, um. If you don’t mind, how did she sound, when she talked about me? Like…was there anything, um, special? Not to say I think there _would_ be, but just….just in case…”

“I’m sorry, I don’t…I don’t remember it in that much detail,” Chara said, taken thoroughly aback. They pushed their hands further into the opposite sleeve, looking at their boots.

“Oh, no, that’s! That’s okay! Please don’t worry about it!” Alphys laughed nervously, in a way unnervingly reminiscent of Asriel. “I’m just…haha, I’m sorry. I must look pathetic to you.”

Before they had a chance to reply, she added hastily, “N-no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable! Oh god, I’m really s-sorry, um, that isn’t what I meant…”

Steadily getting the impression that they needed to treat her with care (a novelty, at least, to be the one on this side of the relationship), Chara tried to be soothing. “It’s quite alright. I can perfectly understand wanting to know more, and I’m only sorry that I can’t tell you anything beyond what I already have.”

So followed several more apologies, until Alphys finally, and unexpectedly, put an end to it by sighing heavily. By this point, Chara was balancing on their heels, unwilling to sit down on the frozen ground. They rocked back and forth slowly, watching the begonia.

“I think…” Alphys started in a resigned but awkward manner, “I think she might actually be right, though. I feel…God, I feel awful!” she laughed. “Did you say _everyone’s_ fallen down? Everyone but the prince?”

“Yes, but it’s not your fault. I’m persuaded you couldn’t have done anything: a curse did it, and only breaking the curse in the predetermined way is going to work,” Chara said, with feeling enough to surprise even themself. They were clearly still over-excited from the night’s dancing: it was making them think in ways they weren’t used to.

Alphys sighed, again. “I just know I c-could have done something! There’s nothing that can’t be worked out! That’s what Gaster always said, and he was always right, and then His Majesty always told me that if we just…just had faith and did what we thought was right, it would be alright!” She breathed a laugh. “But! I guess that didn’t really m-mean anything, huh.”

Unfamiliar passion gripped them, forcing words out of their mouth before they had a chance to complain. “Of course it did! It was just that you were fighting the curse with the wrong weapons! There’s only one way to break it, and anything else is useless.”

“S-so what is the way? To break it, I mean.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

The snow was collecting on the soil around Alphys’ flower. It was going to settle, that much was clear. If Chara didn’t watch out, they were going to be caught out in it. _Not such a bad way to go_ , their mind provided helpfully before they swatted the thought away. It wasn’t useful, and it wasn’t how they really felt.

“W-well!” Alphys said with rousing spirit. “I, um. Don’t think it would be good to dwell on that too much! They always say: don’t think too hard about the things that upset you, because you’ll just, um…just find yourself in a spiral of your own misery! Or something. And I do, um, feel like it’s artificial, or difficult, to pretend, but there’s absolutely _no_ point in me wasting my first period of consciousness in god knows how long just _moping_!”

She seemed set on this, and Chara could only applaud her. She seemed to be breathing heavily, possibly with exertion of her own will. It was touching. They felt jaded, next to her, or perhaps just stagnant, but, oddly enough, they didn’t feel ready to indulge in that stagnation. It was tempting, because it was what they were used to, but they didn’t want to fall into despondence again. Not while they felt so charmed to be out of it. Making a noise of assent, they nodded.

“So! I’m going to feel grateful th-that Undyne thought of me! I’m going to feel grateful that the prince is still here! I’m going to feel grateful that no one’s actually dead! There are so many good things left to be grateful for! And Undyne would _never_ be proud of me if I just stayed gloomy!”

Chara nodded more vigorously than before, wrapping their arms around their legs.

“And!” Alphys cried, with an air of conclusion. “This is all going to work out! Y-you and the prince are going to…going to find the way to break the curse! Everyone’s going to wake up! And then I’m going to c-confess and we’re going to kiss and we’re going to…!”

Carried away by her own fantasy, she became inarticulate. Chara caught the odd phrase here and there – mostly scandalous things – and found their lips curling up in amusement. It was sweet, to watch her, even if there wasn’t (strictly speaking) anything to watch. And when Alphys, in a burst of coherency, asked, “And it’s normal to want a-attention and affection from the person you love, isn’t it?!” they found themself agreeing.

“Oh!” Alphys exclaimed before they could take it back. “Do you get like that too? Just all…like you can’t see anything good about yourself, but then she’s there and telling you all these things you can’t really believe? But which you really want to believe? And you just can’t u-understand, because, I mean, why would _anyone_ like you, but _she_ does, and she keeps telling you so? And it just becomes this…this attachment, because god, you’d _love_ to get some self-confidence of your own, but you can’t, so you have to start relying on her for it, and for that you need her to keep telling you that she likes you, and you just….you just…” she trailed off. A moment passed, and then, in a much meeker voice, she said, “Um. I’m really sorry, I didn’t, uh, mean to get that…th-that carried away…”

“It’s alright,” Chara said, though their voice felt a trifle hollow to them. In a commendable effort to try and comfort Alphys, they said, “I…I feel the same, sometimes. It isn’t a feeling unknown to me.”

The truth, painfully so.

“Really?!” The exuberance of her reply made them wince, and that, combined with their already vulnerable balance as they rocked on their heels, sent them overbalancing. They waved their hands out to catch themself on the flower bed next to them, and somewhere in between flailing and falling backwards onto a thin layer of snow, their fingers brushed against the flower there.

Alphys – unaware of what had happened, since she couldn’t see – was still talking, up until the point she was interrupted by a tremendous sigh.

“Alphys dear, it isn’t that I’m not thrilled to hear your voice, but are you really going on about that _again_?”

“M-mettaton! What are _you_ …!”

“I have awakened, clearly,” he said in a dry voice. “Or perhaps I have been awakened. Really, does it matter?”

Alphys stuttered her way through a peevish reply which the so-named Mettaton didn’t seem very interested in, but which he listened to anyway. For their part, Chara got back to their crouching position with renewed difficulty, owing to the numbness of their legs. Shame played a part in it too, for being so honest, but they didn’t much want to think of that. Since the two monsters seemed to know each other well, they let them get on with it while they gingerly rearranged the soil around the spider lily they’d knocked. It was a delicate, flouncy thing, and would undoubtedly have been a rich red if the golden light pouring down on the three of them hadn’t dulled it somewhat.

“Anyway!” Mettaton cut in over Alphys’ assurance that she did not, in fact, speak about ‘pointless romance’ _all_ the time. “I take it we’ve fallen and become these ghastly flowers, but would it be _too_ much to ask that someone explain what’s happened?”

Dutifully, and glad to be of service, Chara did.

“Well,” Mettaton said rather briskly. “Chara dear – may I call you that? Good. Now, the way I see it, and do stop me if I’ve gotten it wrong, is that we’re all doomed, and while there _is_ a cure, of sorts, no one knows what it is. Is that correct?”

Their mouth felt dry, and their blood was cold with dread, but they said, “Yes.”

“Oh, delightful! Well, by all means, go back to discussing romance. It isn’t as if there’s anything else to worry about!” He laughed prettily. “Why, it’s just like back before we fell! Only now, of course, I’m in no position to strengthen everyone’s courage with my brilliance,” he said, sounding genuinely concerned.

Faced with backlash that was utterly justified, Chara could only stare at their feet and let themself be saved by Alphys shouting, “M-mettaton! This really isn’t the time!”

Feathers ruffled, he retorted, “At least I’m trying to find a solution! I don’t see _you_ doing anything about it! Not that I see anything at all, which is rather the point!”

The two of them were audibly frazzled, distressed with every right to be so, but the sounds of them fighting still made Chara’s body stiffen up. They didn’t mean to, but they didn’t even bother to smile: they just crouched, their expression set in stone, staring at their feet and wishing the fighting would stop.

“I d-don’t see why you’re making such a fuss about this! There’s nothing we can do: Chara said there wasn’t!”

“I am _just saying_ ,” Mettaton hissed through gritted teeth, “that there are slightly more important things to worry about, and while I know this has to be very difficult for you too, Alphys, some of us would actually _like_ to go back to our lives!”

Alphys drew in a breath. “What do you m-mean by th-that?”

A pause, in which Chara desperately wished to be anywhere else, but preferably with Asriel, since he would know exactly how to calm them both down and make everything safe again. Then, Mettaton said in a much stiffer voice, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything nasty.”

“Why w-would y-you _say_ that?!” Alphys cried, her voice twisting with shocked anger. Chara clamped their teeth together.

“Alphys, I said I’m sorry.”

She seemed about to shout again, but caught herself at the last moment. Neither of them said anything for a minute, or two, or three, or mercy only knew how long because Chara couldn’t tell. They tried to ignore the oppressive atmosphere by going over the evening in their mind. The poems, the stories at dinner, the looks on Asriel’s face, the way he’d held them while dancing, the laughter they hadn’t been able to suppress, because they were having fun. Safety.

“I w-worked _so_ hard,” Alphys said with indignant fury. “You know I did!”

“Yes, darling, I know, and I-”

“I am getting b-better! I promised I wouldn’t w-worry everyone like that again!”

“I know,” he said, without a trace of the affectations from before. “I didn’t mean to imply I wanted you to…you know.”

“Well!” After that, the last of her anger seemed to have died down, and she ended it with a meek, “I shouldn’t have, um. Blown up at you like that. I’m s-sorry.”

“No, don’t apologise. I shouldn’t have said it.” Then, with the twist of a smirk, “Undyne would just shout at you if she caught you apologising after that, don’t you think so? And it wouldn’t do to upset her, now would it?”

“N-no, I guess… _eep_! Oh my god, Chara, are you s-still there? Did you h-hear all of that? Oh my god, I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have…” She trailed off with an alarming wailing sound.

“It’s alright,” they said mechanically. “I’m sorry, I just thought it would be better to keep quiet.”

“Oh, I’m s-so sorry! I didn’t mean to! That must have been so, um, awkward…”

“No, it’s…I’m sorry…”

Mettaton sighed deeply and dramatically. “Please don’t fall into a cycle of apologies. I don’t think my constitution would be able to stand it.”

“You’re a flower,” Alphys said acidly.

“Very true. Now! Let’s forget all of that horribleness and go straight back to you discussing your so-called hopeless love,” he said, stifling a yawn.

“N-not if you’re going to be _rude_ about it!”

They fell into bickering again, and Chara began to feel at a loss. They had no idea how to pierce the conversation, or if they were even needed. It worried them, and if it stopped at worrying without pushing straight on into distress, they had their lingering good mood to thank. It was all so confusing – they felt out of their depth.

But, as Alphys and Mettaton calmed down from fighting into good-natured reminiscing and comparing what they remembered from before they had fallen, Chara began to think that it was better if they didn’t speak at all. Perhaps that was why they had been brought down to these two: to get them speaking to each other.

Things became mildly more difficult when they moved from that safe conversation topic (safe because Chara couldn’t reasonably be brought into it) and back to relationships.

“You c-can’t talk, you know,” Alphys groused. “You love romance and d-drama and all that kind of stuff!”

“In books! In stories, darling, they’re simply wonderful, but you know I can’t stand anything as dreary as romance in real life. It never works out the way you’d like.”

“Th-that’s how real life _is_!”

“Well yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Alphys gave a long-suffering sigh. “Alright, well, um! Chara, what do you think? I-if you’re still there, I m-mean. God, we just spent like five minutes ignoring you again, d-didn’t we? I’m so sorry!”

“No, it’s alright,” they said, and left it at that lest the whole thing turn into another barrage of apologies. Scraping a fingernail through the soft layer of snow on the stone near their feet, they said, “I think…it’s perfectly fine in theory.”

“Yes, yes, in _theory_ , it’s wonderful!” Mettaton said impatiently. “In theory, it can even be touching and heartening and all sorts of lovely things, but that’s not the point. How do you feel about overly affectionate couples – especially those who don’t even see fit to call themselves a couple yet, despite it being plain for _everyone to see_ that they’re madly in love – and that sort of love in _practice_.”

“I…”

“D-don’t bully them, Mettaton!”

“I’m not bullying them! I’m just asking a question! In fact, you asked it first!”

While they snapped at each other again, Chara thought about it. They didn’t have any experience with it, if they were honest. Their parents hadn’t engaged in that sort of thing, ever. They hadn’t been around people enough to notice it in public. They had certainly read about public affection, if that was what the conversation was even about (and they had to admit they had lost the thread once or twice), but neither their brother nor their sister had ever brought love home with them, and neither had they.

They’d never thought they could.

“I don’t think it’s bad,” they said eventually, their voice breaking through the others’, who both went silent. “I think…it can get sickening, and there are limits, but sometimes rather than being obnoxious, that’s just how people express their love. Perhaps they don’t have any experience with it, and they’re just rejoicing in the fact that they can do it at all. I think that’s a good thing.”

“As well you might, but isn’t that overly optimistic?” Mettaton complained. “Mostly it’s just two idiots wallowing in their own idiotic happiness and while it’s sweet and lovely and all that…well, I mean, _really_.”

“Well, y-you’re being overly pessimistic,” bit back Alphys, and then they were at it again, leaving Chara to their own thoughts. They needed the space.

 

To say that the conversation with Alphys and Mettaton didn’t stick with them would be a lie, but it wasn’t necessarily the truth that it _did_ stick with them either. Days passed, and they merely noticed things. Small things: Asriel holding doors open for them, complimenting them on their outfits, finding a way to bring them into a conversation even in their most hostile moods (unrecommendable, but touching anyway), and so many more that they couldn’t remember them all. It started as a few raindrops and soon became a deluge as they became aware of it all.

The most vexing part was that they couldn’t remember how many of his devoted attentions they had missed before they’d started to think about it. It didn’t really matter – of course it didn’t – but it was something pleasant to think about when the rest of their mind was occupied whole-heartedly with reminding them that they weren’t lifting a finger to free everyone.

But they didn’t know what to do.

 

Some days after that meeting, they tried something new, but not in a particularly impressive way. They just, for the first time, asked for specific clothes when they were getting dressed.

“It isn’t that I don’t like these, you know,” they said, eyeing the fur-lined dress that had been left out for them, “but I was wondering if you took…suggestions.”

The clothes on the bed disappeared before they could blink and it felt to them as if the very air was waiting in excited anticipation. Which was impossible: it was absurd that a curse could affect things to that extent.

They rung their hands together, casting their mind back to the book of engravings they’d read the day before in the library. Oddly enough, it had been of human fashions about a decade old, but it had reminded them of how much they’d admired the fashion in the city they’d grown up in. There were things they’d never been allowed to wear, and that had only sparked up their curiosity. They didn’t know the first thing about fashion, nor did they really want to, but they knew what looked pleasing to them, and they knew that looking nice made them feel better. They knew that being told they looked nice made them feel better still.

“I was thinking…if you could just find, or create, or whatever it is, the usual shirt and waistcoat, but this time add buckskins rather than breeches, perhaps? And maybe a neck-cloth, if you don’t mind…it doesn’t have to be very starched, just…just enough. And then a tailcoat, and some…some hessians, maybe…” they trailed off, unsure of themself, but they didn’t even have the time to regret being so greedy before the clothes they’d asked for were ready and waiting on the sheets.

It was better than they could have imagined, which wasn’t surprising. The buckskins were a delicate fawn colour, the hessians polished to a shine that was almost obscene, and the tailcoat was such a rich shade of dark red that they couldn’t help but reach out to touch it, relishing the fabric between their fingers. A damn sight better than the puce the castle had been pushing on them recently. And if the waistcoat had an embroidered pattern of buttercups that could only be called gaudy, they didn’t quite mind.

Without a valet or any experience to speak of, they were grateful that the castle had given them cuts that were easy to put on by themself, and they had to make do with a disappointingly lacklustre style to their neck-cloth. But, looking in the wall-length mirror in the corner of their room, they were satisfied. It was amazing what good clothes did to one’s confidence. Buoyed up, they went down to see if Asriel had tea ready.

He did, but he was also distracted, so much so that he barely looked at them when they came into the library. Tea was poured, greetings were exchanged, toast was covered with butter and jam and subsequently eaten, but he seemed nervous. That on its own wasn’t unusual. Sitting in the great armchair next to the windows, Chara sipped their tea and watched him. Whatever was bothering him, he didn’t look as if he’d tell them. Perhaps he thought he was doing a good job of hiding it, but they just felt nervous themself, watching him stare darkly at the table or the distressingly green gardens outside. Very few words passed between them.

The rest of the morning was the same, as was the afternoon. He hardly seemed to notice them, as if he was just running on instinct when he suggested places to go and things to do. They felt they were doing him a service when they excused themself in the late afternoon, expressing an interest in the grounds.

“Are you sure?” he asked, looking them in the eyes for what felt like the first time that day. The edges of his own neck-cloth were frayed from fidgeting with his claws.

“I’m sure,” they smiled, brushing down their buckskins of paper dust. “A walk will do me good, anyway.”

“You’re probably right,” he said, perking up at the idea. “Wrap up warm, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

The castle had that under control anyway: they were given a sizeable great-coat as they left through the kitchens. It had deep pockets, which they appreciated. It allowed them to plunge their hands in and huddle up as they strode out through the gardens, passing all manners of flowers they weren’t in the mood to speak to.

Ten minutes of frustrated walking later, they let themself admit that they were annoyed. Or not annoyed – deflated. They’d gotten their hopes up, but it was stupid to do that around other people. Betrayal and disappointment were par the course. It was just how it was: you nurtured your own selfish expectations of how other people should act, and when they didn’t quite fulfil them, you were left wanting. Resenting, too, sometimes, even though that was plainly unfair.

It was unfair, but life was, in general.

It was so stupid, too! They stamped through snowy grass where wildflowers should have been and they felt like laughing. Had they been _expecting_ compliments? Well, it was their own fault they were upset, then, wasn’t it? They couldn’t condemn him for not reaching the standards they held him to without telling him. Even if he’d been the one to raise those standards with every kind word and every attention he gave them. But it was their fault for being unreasonable. They were the one in the wrong. It was easy to think like that, though they had a sneaking suspicion that that was too neat a generalisation to possibly be true.

No matter: it was their fault. Everything was.

The grounds stretched around them as far as they could see except where the glint of metal under sun meant the gates were nearby. The gates, and then – beyond – the forest. And then the village. It was all so close, really. They marched on.

Further out, the gardens and the castle long behind them, they came to a lake which looked decidedly dead. There was no other word for it: the water barely stirred, and there weren’t even water weeds or cattails to liven it up. They skirted around the edge and looked in, but they could only see their own reflection. They turned away, hurriedly.

Everywhere they looked, the grounds were unwelcoming. Stretches of snow-covered grass caged in by forest all around, and it all felt so pointless; there was no farmland, no exploitation of the land at all. It wasn’t even the cold openness of moors, where at least one felt that there was history under the heather and scrub. And here, away from the castle, there was no sense that anyone was watching over them. For the first time in weeks, Chara felt truly alone. It was a breath of fresh air, the kind that burned the lungs.

Their heart was pounding with exertion but they walked on, faster and faster, making for the thick forest they could see in front of them. It was strange: it didn’t look separated by a gate, and it wasn’t the skeletal woods they’d walked through to get to the castle initially, but none of that really mattered compared to the simple fact that it was a destination. They just wanted somewhere to go, something new to see, something to pretend they were useful at all. If it was self-delusion, so be it. Whatever it took to convince them they weren’t a burden on everyone they met and the world in general.

If they suspected their thoughts were veering dangerously into bitterness, they didn’t do anything to stop them. After all, they’d been given the chance to be comfortable and happy, and they’d frittered it all away on unfair expectations.

It was their fault they were like this, and they were going to revel in it.

The forest seemed to envelop them in gloom. They had taken maybe three steps in before it was difficult to see, the brightness behind them not penetrating anywhere near as far as it should. Chara walked slower, picking their way over roots that shot up out of the dry earth like the ruins of some long-destroyed city. The trees, too, were unsettling. Not blackened, but twisted: not a single one went up straight, and the further Chara went in, the more the trunks curved around each other, until it was as if they were tangled together. Despite this, it wasn’t difficult to walk. The tangles were few and far between, and as long as these were avoided, it was easy-going. It wasn’t nearly enough to distract Chara from their own thoughts.

Scuffing their boots on the wispy grass around the bases of trees, they gritted their teeth. It was fine. It was absolutely, perfectly fine, except for when it wasn’t. It was fine when they could convince themself they were worth something, or when they could pretend they were doing anything useful, but it didn’t take very much to tear the curtains down and shed light on the rot within.

It was so frustrating: they didn’t _want_ to keep falling into despair.

(Except they did, since that was what they deserved.)

They didn’t _want_ to make everything awkward for those around them. They didn’t want to be like this, but they were.

That’s who they were.

Walking through the trees, ducking under twists of branches, they came to a clearing and stopped. Immediately, their feet began to protest, loudly, and they had to shift their weight back and forth to try and keep the pain at bay. In the end, they gave up, and slumped down. They crumpled their clothes in the process, but really, who was going to care?

The anger and bitterness were gone, and they felt drained, empty of most everything but fatigue and lingering disappointment. They reached out a hand to pluck a buttercup from the dry grass in front of them. The flowers were all over the clearing, and it took them a moment to realise how out of place they were. But perhaps the curse hadn’t spread as far as these woods. It didn’t matter. They twirled the buttercup in between their fingers.

It wasn’t anything new. If it had been something new, perhaps they could have fun with it. Instead, it was all the same, this feeling of shame, as if they simply – fundamentally – weren’t enough. Forget the standards they held others to: their standards for themself were far stricter, far harsher, and perpetually unattainable. Bearing those in mind, it wasn’t really a surprise to them that they would collapse like this at the first reminder that they weren’t doing anything with their life.

It was just another disappointment.

They fell backwards, staring at the pinpricks of light that cut through the leaves far, far above them. The buttercup fell from their numb fingers. Their breath came out in faint clouds, and they could feel their eyes aching with the need to cry. It was all so stupid. All this, because the person they’d come to rely on wasn’t being accommodating anymore?

No. All this, because of years of being insufficient. It wasn’t so much a Pandora’s box as a Pandora’s door, ready whenever one decided to open it and walk inside to meet everything one would prefer to forget. They needed to be distracted from it, and they had been. Asriel had done a very good job of locking the door and hiding the key between the sweet, heartfelt words and the smiles that by all rights should have looked monstrous on his face but didn’t.

They realised that – more than a clue to the curse, more than some purpose to their life – what they really wanted now was him, and not just for a distraction. Tears began to prick their eyes and their lifted their hands to their face, crying freely. There was no one to hear them, anyway.

“I’m sorry,” they mumbled through tears, because it seemed the right thing to do. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I don’t want…I’m _sorry_.” The words were unintelligible when mixed with sobs, but they had to keep apologising. It was all such a mess. “I’m sorry! I want to work harder, I want to fix everything, I do! I want to be better than this, I swear, I swear this isn’t…I’m sorry, I’m sorry, _I’m so sorry_ , I want to…I…Asriel, I’m so sorry, Asriel, Asriel, Asriel, _Asriel_.” They repeated his name until it became a nonsensical collection of sounds.

Sounds, and the emotions behind them.

It took them some time to calm down, mostly spent making ugly gulping noises as the guilt and shame hit them, wave after wave. Somehow, they sat up and shivered, wiping their cheeks as dry as they could. The greatcoat was ruined, or close to it, with dirt and buttercup stains. They frowned, ripping another flower out of the near-frozen earth. It was far too late – or early – for buttercups. They didn’t know much about flowers, but as far as they knew, buttercups were not all-year flowers, nor were they like snowdrops. Their frown deepened. They were–

“Chara!”

They dropped the flower, turning wide eyes on the break in the trees to their side. Unthinkably, unreasonably, Asriel was there, hulking with his barrel of a chest heaving for breath, claws hooked in the trunks closest to him so viciously that the bark had been ripped up.

“What are you _doing_ here?” they asked in a voice croaky from crying.

“I…” His eyes were raking over them, breath clouding in front of his face, his mouth hanging open just enough to see the finger-sized teeth. “I…told you, once, that…that the castle would tell me if something was wrong.”

This took a moment to sink in, but he didn’t give them quite that long, finally walking forwards into the clearing and sitting down in front of them. Slowly, he reached out to brush a thumb over their cheek, and they didn’t say anything to stop him. They could only hope he was as embarrassed as they were.

“You…I called you, and the castle told you that,” they said, a touch more sour than they meant. They didn’t mean to be sour at all: it was just frail indignation fighting its way past the swell of relief.

He whipped his hand back as if they’d burned him, and stared down at his knees. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how it works: it’s only happened a few times before, and I just got this _feeling_ , and I knew where you were, and…I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

“Don’t.” The second he’d threatened to leave, they’d shot out a hand to catch his. He dwarfed them, as usual, but if they had to use physical power to hold him back then it was pointless anyway.

He looked at them, his fingers closing over theirs without even the scrape of claw against their skin. Only warmth. “You were crying.”

“Yes. You ran here.” They said it with levity they were beginning to feel again, now he was here to talk with.

A smile broke out on his face. He was still breathing heavily. “I did. But you… _why_ were you crying? And why here? I’ve barely ever come here before myself.”

“It doesn’t matter,” they shook their head, reaching out their other hand to rest on top of his.

“It does. I mean, if you’d rather not tell me, I don’t mind, but-”

“I trust you,” they said firmly. “I trust you more than anyone else, but it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.” Nothing they could tell him, at any rate: it might make him feel more trusted, but it would also hurt him, if they could allow themself enough arrogance to believe he cared about them that much.

They’d evidently said the right thing, because his eyes were wide for a moment before he pulled himself back into enough control to say, “Y-you trust me?”

“Of course I do.” Matter-of-factly.

“More than anyone?”

“ _Yes_ ,” they said, and found themself smiling. It was so stupid, to have their despair packed neatly away the second he began to talk to them. Or maybe they’d just needed a good cry. It didn’t matter anymore either way.

“Oh.” He looked pleased, but also somewhat speechless. They rubbed circles on the back of his hand. “And you’re sure it’s alright? I’d be happy to listen to anything, you know, anything at all.”

“It’s fine.” But they were tired, and they leaned forwards just enough to rest their forehead against his chest. He stiffened up.

Time passed, and neither of them said anything, content with the physical closeness and peace. This was how it was supposed to be, between them, and Chara wanted to protect that. If they were going to get him to confide in them about what had been distracting him, now was the time. They wanted him to trust them too, so they said, “I’d do the same. Anything you need to talk about, I’ll listen to it.” They genuinely wanted to, if it was him.

He paused. “Then…Chara, can I…if you’re really okay, can I tell you something?”

“By all means.”

“You…Well, I’m sure you know by now, don’t you? About the flowers.”

They nodded against his waistcoat.

“Recently I’ve been avoiding them. Or really, I’ve been doing it for years. I used to go round and speak to people whenever I could, and I spoke to my parents every day at least twice, but I just…stopped. For the last few years I’ve only been talking to my parents, and even that’s only once a day. I just can’t take it.” He laughed a little dryly. “They don’t talk about it anymore, but they used to go on about how I’m destined to save them. And you remember the, uh, story I told you, don’t you? I can’t do it. I don’t know how. My father told me there’s a single, perfect way to break the curse, but he said he doesn’t know what it is, and I don’t have any way of finding out. I’m useless. I can’t do what I’m supposed to: I can’t set anyone free.”

Chara pushed their cheek against his chest, closing their eyes, breathing him in. The mere act of touching him kept everything else away. “That’s okay.”

“It’s not! I can’t…I can’t do the one thing I’m meant to! It’s what I was born for!”

“But there’s nothing you can do,” they pointed out.

“But…!” He didn’t even try to come up with a protest: he only made a strangled sound, leaning his chin on top of their head.

There was nothing either of them could do. They both knew it, and neither of them could accept it. Rather than glory or victory, they were both fated to a purgatory of powerlessness.

“Can I tell you something else?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Of course you can.”

“You help.”

If they hadn’t been so comfortable, they would have lifted their head to look at him. As it was, they made a small questioning sound.

“When you’re here, I don’t feel so useless. Before you came, I used to go into violent phases where I wanted to destroy everything and break free of all of this, but I haven’t had that kind of urge since I met you. You really,” –he breathed in– “ _really_ help. Just being with you helps.”

They weren’t the type to write poetry to work out their emotions, nor were they the type to recite grand speeches if they could help it. They’d never been very good with words. So they just said, “I feel the same. You used to irritate me so much I couldn’t stand you, but I don’t know what I’d do without you now. It’s not just that you seem to value me, and like me, and I’m not used to that: it’s more that I think I love you.”

The woods were silent, but not such that their words echoed. They didn’t need to: Chara kept repeating them over and over in their own head enough as it was.

Asriel choked, seemingly on air. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “I feel the same. I mean, I…I love you.”

Neither of them moved, but then, it wasn’t such a grand revelation as all that. Chara was sure they’d known anyway, even with their splintered self-esteem forcing them to pretend otherwise. And he had to have known. Or perhaps he didn’t: perhaps he didn’t know how comfortable they were with him. Maybe he had no idea that they had never had anyone who meant as much to them as he did. Maybe he had no idea, either, that they had never known anyone to treat them as kindly as he had. He certainly couldn’t be expected to know that he made them feel as if they were worth something more than a quick death.

They needed to show him, if he was to know at all.

Pulling away gently from under his chin, they lifted their hands up to his jaw – so much bigger than their own – and smiled when they saw his black, black eyes widen. They closed their own and leaned in to kiss him.


	8. Face the Falling Curtain with a Bow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't actually think I'd be able to write this, so getting it done in just over a day was a surprise. Sorry.
> 
> Lots of warnings for suicide ideation as usual. Oh, and necrophilia and cannibalism are mentioned, but nothing more than that.

The awkward thing, Chara decided, was the size difference. They would have been more comfortable with someone only, say, two heads taller than them, but trying to kiss _quite_ such a huge monster was difficult.

Which wasn’t to say unpleasant.

It helped that they were in his lap, curled up instinctively to the burning warmth of his chest, their hands stroking through the fur at the back of his head. With his arms around their back, they were shielded from the winter chill all around them, so it was easy to forget the ache of their neck as they tilted it to reach him better. And, after a while, they stopped thinking about that, or anything. It wasn’t as if the thoughts had been whisked away: it was like they were hidden, and it was far too much effort to go looking for them when they were so pleasantly occupied doing other things.

It was comforting to be held and kissed as if you were something precious. The feeling seemed to be reciprocated: when they did break apart just enough for Chara to see his black, decidedly inhuman eyes, Asriel looked like he’d lost himself somewhere along the way. They kissed him again.

It took a while before they came to the mutual decision that they’d had enough. Finally letting their aching neck relax, Chara bent down to lean against his waistcoat again, fiddling with one of the buttons. He, apparently a fan of having his legs go numb (or perhaps he just didn’t mind), didn’t ask them to get off, and he leant his head on theirs again, absently stroking their hair.

It was a disarmingly affectionate scene in totally the wrong setting, and Chara decided to break it.

“I think you should tell your mother.”

“Um,” he said flatly, the sound buzzing against them in his throat. “About what. Exactly.”

“Your lack of confidence vis-à-vis saving everyone.”

“Oh. No.”

They had to bite back a laugh, he sounded so disgusted with the idea. “Well, why not? Do you honestly think it’s going to get any better? You’ve been here how many years, worrying about it by yourself?”

“Alright, _yeah_ , but…” He took a breath, ready to embark on a deluge of excuses which Chara decided they’d sit through, but only because they were so comfortable where they were. “What’s she going to be able to do? I’ve thought about everything already. I’ve asked everyone, and she’s…there’s not really two ways about this: she’s a flower. I love her, of course I do! But she’s not going to be able to fix this.”

“No, she isn’t,” they agreed. “Tell her anyway.”

“Why? I’m just going to bother her.”

“But this is bothering you,” they pointed out. “You’ve been distracted lately, and it’s only going to get worse.”

“What? No, that was…I wasn’t distracted because of this. And it’s a moot point anyway because I’m not going to do it. It’s just going to worry her, and I can’t even offer anything in the way of comfort. What am I going to say, Chara? ‘Oh, hello Mum, glad you’re doing well, florally, but about that great destiny everyone seems to think I’m going to have: I can’t actually do it’? I’d rather die.”

Chara trailed a finger down royal blue embroidery, a night sky of fabric punctured by silvery button moons. “You’re serious about that, aren’t you? Wanting to die.”

He made an embarrassed, awkward sound. “Not…not _seriously_ …just…”

“A little fantasy, sometimes?”

“Something like that.”

“Mm. I still think you should tell her.”

“But why? I just told you I can’t!”

“Because you _can_. She’s there, and she loves you. Unconditionally. She really, really loves you, Asriel: you know she does. And I’m one thing, because I’m an outsider, but you need to admit this to someone who you feel might be able to…purge you of your guilt, let’s say.”

“Let’s not.”

“Don’t be difficult,” they said, poking him and pressing their cheek more firmly against his chest at the same time. “It’s just going to weigh you down until you tell someone. And it’s not as if it’ll go away after that, but it’ll feel lighter. Less like some sin so unspeakable that just admitting it might hurt those around you.”

There was a pause, in which the wind picked up and Chara felt the first shivers of snow on their legs. Then he said, “I don’t want to.”

“I want you to.”

He didn’t reply, and they were sure he was pouting, so they continued. “Telling me helped, didn’t it? So tell her. Or tell your father. Tell someone. Promise me that. We’ll figure out a way to do something with the curse later. I don’t know what, I really don’t, but there has to be something we can do. But you need to help yourself first.”

Another pause, a longer one. It wasn’t so much broken as pushed gently when Chara clambered off Asriel’s legs, gave him a pointed look, and they both got up a little clumsily. Chara had to hold his hand for support as the two of them walked out of the woods, since their knees kept spiking with bolts of pain that were gone before they felt it, leaving only sudden weakness. It didn’t fade away as quickly as they would have liked.

“Are you alright?” he asked, looking down at them now he was back to his full height.

They nodded. “Legs hurt.”

He made a small noise of acknowledgement, tightening his arm around their shoulders like an invitation they declined to take. They did tug his hand down so they could hold it in theirs, however. And neither said anything as they climbed out of the twisting, malformed trees: it was like they were holding their breath until they were out into the open and the castle was in view.

There didn’t seem to be anything to say, but Asriel managed to make conversation. “It’s an odd thing from this far away, isn’t it?”

Chara nodded, staring at the hulk of polished stone that was, from a certain angle, a castle. The façade facing the entrance gates was all well and good, but the other sides were nowhere even approaching organised. It was as if a particularly enthusiastic (or distracted) architect had taken inspiration from as many different styles as they had found, switching at random. Chara was almost certain they could see a gargoyle on the west wing.

“Are you used to it? The size, I mean,” Asriel asked in that airy way he had that meant he cared very deeply about the answer.

“I’m not sure. It’s easier when I think of it like it’s a person. Even back in the city, we never lived in anything so big. I’ve never even heard of anyone who lived in anything this big, apart from royalty.”

“Well,” he said in an embarrassed voice, “guilty as charged. And I’m told that it used to be used by everyone, anyway. A communal house for anyone who wanted to live there.”

The grass was wet around their ankles: they could feel the cold through their boots as snow fell and melted just as quickly. “I can’t imagine that’d be much fun without a curse doing all the housework.”

“Oh, that was probably communal too.” He made a sound of distaste. “I prefer it this way.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” they smiled. “You’ve probably never done a scrap of work in your life.”

“And you have? Oh, wait, of course you have. Never mind. Sorry.”

They shook their head to show no offence was taken. “I did a lot of housework in the village, but I’ve never had to do laundry or cooking or dusting or anything of the sort. My sister preferred to do all of that herself.”

Asriel nodded slowly. “Do you miss…that?”

“Not really,” they said truthfully. Guilt wasn’t the same as wanting to go back, and they weren’t wanted there anyway: that had been made very clear to them.

“Oh. Good. I just…I wouldn’t want to think you were uncomfortable here.”

It sounded like he was leaving something out, but they didn’t push. “I’m comfortable. I’m sure it’s difficult not to be, when you have a castle attending to your every whim.”

“That’s a definite perk,” he agreed. “Look, Chara, are you sure you’re alright? You’ve been limping since you got up.”

“I’m not _limping_ ,” they protested. “I was just kneeling for too long, that’s all.”

“If you’re sure,” he said, a fraction too late to be natural.

They changed the subject, staring down into the lake as they passed by it. “Is there anything living in here?”

“Like what? Plants?” he peered in as well, leaning over them just enough that they worried they might overbalance and fall in, in the event of which they resolved to pull him in too. He straightened up before it came to that. “I don’t think so.”

“I meant fish, I suppose, but I guess if there aren’t any insects or pondweed or anything, fish couldn’t live here.”

“Oh, definitely not fish,” he said knowledgeably. “I’ve never even seen a fish.”

“What a thing to sound proud of.”

“I’m not proud of it! I just meant…I know this place pretty well. I’d know if there were fish.”

Chara took this information in, staring at the hedges they were slowly approaching. An idea formed in their mind – a way to admit something they weren’t sure how to otherwise. “You know it ‘pretty well’?”

“Of course.” He almost puffed his chest out. “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

They made a dull sound of interest. “How many rooms are there in the second floor tower, the one on the left?”

“What? Five, but–”

“And how many decorative cake stands in the china cabinet in that big parlour off the music room?”

“Um…three, wasn’t it?” He was looking at them funnily but they didn’t look back.

“And what colour is the tiling in the third floor bathrooms?”

“White and blue,” he said, gaining confidence.

“How many doors in the corridor leading to the dining room?”

“Nine pairs.”

“Which type of flower is carved into the gazebo?”

“Roses.”

“How many notebooks of hand-written poetry are in the tower–”

“ _What?!_ ”

They snorted at his scandalised howl, refusing to meet his eyes. Distant hedges were far more important. “Nothing at all.”

“You saw those?!” He sounded about to cry.

“To be more accurate, I was shown them.”

“What? By wh-…It was the castle, wasn’t it?”

They nodded, feeling really quite pleased with themself. It felt nice. They decided they should tease him more often, if feeling self-satisfied was like this.

“Oh, that’s just brilliant, isn’t it?” he said, his voice thick. “A castle big enough to house hundreds of people, and I can’t have any privacy.”

“Well, aren’t _you_ a statue of persecuted virtue?” they said, and then decided it sounded too acidic. “I’m sorry,” they tried to placate him, squeezing his hand and pushing their shoulder against his arm. “I didn’t read much: I was just curious. The early pieces were…interesting, but I only read maybe three verses before turning away, I promise. And the later ones were really quite good.”

“You don’t have to lie just to comfort me,” he sniffed, the very image of wounded pride.

“I’m not lying. I couldn’t relate to the one I read – and I think that’s the way one can really appreciate a poem, by relating to it – but it was pleasant to read. Good sounds.”

Asriel harrumphed a little, but because he was so very big it came out as more of a half-growl. He squeezed their hand back, though, and they didn’t mind that his claws dug into the back of their hand.

The two of them had almost made it to the castle gardens when Chara brought up the question they’d been rolling around in their mouth for some time.

“Since you know so much about the castle, how much do you know about the forest we were just in?”

“Oh, that?” He seemed surprised. “Not much. A bit. I’ve been there a few times.”

“Have you ever seen flowers there before?”

He looked at them sharply. “No. Why would flowers grow out there? They don’t grow wild anywhere else, and I don’t see why anyone would have been buried all the way in the forest after they fell down.”

“Criminals, maybe?”

“No, that’s a human thing. We didn’t have those. Why? Did you see any flowers?”

‘ _Didn’t you?_ ’ was on their lips, but they bit it back, saying instead, “No. I was just wondering why I’d be drawn there, that’s all. Did I tell you about that? The castle draws me to flowers occasionally.”

“That’s how it works for you? You’ll have to tell me about who you’ve met later. I’ve talked to…a fair amount of people,” he frowned in concentration. “Quite a lot, anyway. I might know them.”

“If you like.” They were too relieved to offer the information there and then, too full of lukewarm hypotheses. As long as they hadn’t killed anyone in their tantrum by plucking them from the forest floor, the out-of-place patch of buttercups didn’t matter, they supposed. Something to look into later.

“While we’re on the subject of flowers, though…” Asriel said, bashfully.

They looked up in a way they hoped invited elaboration.

With visible effort, he looked them in the eye. “Would you like to see mine?”

“I beg your pardon?” They were in the gardens now, hints of colour scattered around erratically – a nasturtium here, a chrysanthemum there – but they didn’t pay much attention to that. “You have one? But you’re…” they gestured to him with their free hand. “You’re here.”

“Yeah, but I still have one.” He was looking increasingly embarrassed. “It’s inside the castle, though. I don’t know why I have it: I just found it one day. It took me a few tries to realise what it was.”

“Oh. Alright. If you don’t mind, I’d love to see it.”

“Good! Then, if you’re–”

They shook their head, steering him away from the castle forcefully, towards where Toriel’s flower was waiting. “After you do this. And I’m not coming with you: I’ll be waiting somewhere else.”

Asriel made a petulant sound, but he didn’t resist much.

 

They left him there, a hulking beast in front of a single lily, and went back to the castle to change into clothes that weren’t quite so muddy. They took their time over it. The castle had left three different outfits folded on their bed, and they tried all three on after washing at the basin. A low-cut dress with silk flowers sewn into the outer skirt was too flouncy; a monochrome suit with padded shoulders was too tight; they eventually settled on the outfit they’d never seen anything like before. It was comfortable: trousers that were baggy almost to a fault, collecting around their ankles and worn underneath a vaguely shapeless tunic with long sleeves and a square neckline that glittered with amber beads at every seam.

They were thinking. Every button between their fingers, every tightening of laces and adjusting of material – it was all background movement to keep them focussed. The hollowness that came after tears was still fresh in their mind, but they pushed it away. It wasn’t really the time to indulge in guilt like that.

“Can you…” they said, then paused because it was so odd to talk to an inanimate being. They swallowed and began again. “Can you take me to his father, tonight?”

There was a creak in the floorboards behind them, and they almost spun around in surprise. They weren’t sure they could feel any kind of emotion from it, which seemed unusual.

“Is that a yes?”

There was a long silence, and then another creak, a slow one. They gave up. If the castle wanted to sulk, it had every right to do so.

Asriel met them on their way down to the kitchens, and he looked like he’d been crying quite a lot. They weren’t sure how they knew, since there wasn’t the usual redness around the eyes or nose to tell them, but he sniffed heavily and wiped at his eyes, which gave the game away somewhat. Chara felt a handkerchief appear in the deep pockets of their trousers, and they handed it to him, averting their eyes politely until he was done.

“Did it go alright?” they asked quietly, wretchedly aware that if anything had gone wrong, it was their fault.

“It was…” he leaned against the spotless kitchen counter, making it creak. “It was alright. I suppose. I don’t really know. I don’t think she’s angry. She reassured me she loved me…a lot…”

“That’s the important thing, isn’t it?”

He nodded, still looking awkward. It was endearing and had no right to be so, not on someone as monstrous as him.

“Do you feel better?” they prompted.

“A little. Maybe? I don’t know. We…I still need to fix everything and I don’t know how.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

Asriel nodded again, more doubtfully still. He was scraping a claw down the countertop idly, doing everything but looking them in the eyes, which was alright, they supposed, since he also reached out to take their hand.

“Didn’t you have a flower you wanted to show me?” they asked.

“Oh! Oh, I did, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

The idea seemed to perk him up, and he led them out of the kitchen almost cheerfully. They had to pull on his arm to keep him from going too fast for them, the way their knees were acting up.

“Now, you’re not allowed to make fun of it, okay?” he cautioned as they went up the stairs.

“Of course I’m not going to make fun of it!”

“It’s not really _me_ , but it’s tied to me somehow – I don’t know how, so don’t ask – and you’ve got to be sensitive.”

“When have I ever not been sensitive? I’m a very sensitive person. I’ll be the picture of diplomacy.”

He laughed, so they pinched him.

“Why the warnings, though? Is it just a daisy or something?”

“No, it’s not a daisy!” He sounded outraged. “There’s a daisy somewhere out in the gardens anyway, and the flowers are never repeated for whatever reason.”

They made a sound of interest, letting themself be led down a corridor on the third floor until they reached the rooms he slept in. For some reason, Asriel passed by these, entering instead a small parlour to the side that Chara had definitely been in before. They opted not to question him, though, and were rewarded when he walked over to a painting of a starry sky and dull-coloured fields. Chara looked up at it with mild interest. Since their arm was linked with his (they had to stretch, but it was worth it), he lifted the painting down with one hand and twisted the handle that was behind it, and a small clicking sound came from the window doors. The painting was replaced and they walked out onto the balcony. In the wall next to the doors they’d just walked out of was another door, pressed right up against the balustrade as if it didn’t belong. This, Chara gathered, was the unnecessarily elaborate hiding place they’d been looking for.

“How did you find this place?” they asked as he opened the door.

“I was led here. Same as you to the flowers, I imagine. It just happens sometimes. Anyway, here we are.” He stepped inside, revealing a stunningly white room.

It looked like the whole thing was made of marble, even the shelves and desk set back against one side. There was only the one door, and no windows, but it was stunningly bright and Chara almost had to shelter their eyes from the light. It was roughly the size of their bedroom, but circular, with small pillars around the edges. They looked like they were strung with gold, and upon closer inspection, the looping lines woven around the marble turned out to be engravings of tiny golden flowers. Asriel looked at them, frowning a little.

“These weren’t here last time.”

“Oh?”

“The castle changes things up sometimes, and I don’t usually mind, but this is _my_ room. It could have at least asked my opinion.”

“You could always ask for them to be taken away.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully, turning away from the pillars. “I think they actually suit it, don’t you?”

Chara nodded. They’d thought so the moment they’d walked in. Turning around to admire the rest of the room, their eyes finally caught on the showpiece set towards the back wall, framed by bookcases. It was a pedestal with a thin glass vase on it, the top furling out like petals, and inside, a single white rose.

“That’s…”

“That’s me,” Asriel finished for them, awkwardly. He was fidgeting with his hem, as he was wont to do. Chara wondered briefly how many ruined waistcoat hems the castle had to deal with, but the matter wasn’t very important so they dropped it in favour of walking over the tiled floor to look closer at the rose.

“It’s beautiful,” they said, since they were expected to say something. It was the truth, too. There was the faintest hint of yellow blushing in the very centre of the rose, and everything else was a pearly white, almost artificially perfect.

“Don’t touch it!” Asriel warned, and they whipped their hand back to their side. They hadn’t even realised they were reaching out.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh no, don’t be, you couldn’t have known, it’s just…” he smiled apologetically, his eyes crinkling up. “I’ve touched it a couple of times, and once I ripped out a petal with my claw by mistake, and I was laid up in bed for days with the worst headache. I’m a bit nervous around it, that’s all.”

“But you’re okay even though it’s plucked?”

He looked down at the flower and shrugged. “I don’t understand it either. But I’m alive, and it’s been thriving for years like this, so who knows? I’m probably just a different case to everyone in the garden.”

“Clearly.” They dragged their eyes away from the blinding petals to meet the comforting darkness of his eyes. “It’s very pretty, you know.”

They were almost certain he blushed. At any rate, he coughed, turned away, and gestured wildly around. “A-anyway! That’s basically what this room is.”

“I like it. What are these books?”

He looked at them. “Poetry, mostly.”

“Really?” Chara walked over to the nearest shelf, fishing out a book that looked promising.

“I like poetry,” he said in a defensive voice. “I like the way images are put together and how rhymes sound when they’re done well.”

Their hands poised in mid-action of opening the book, Chara looked at him. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, you know. I really don’t. I don’t personally enjoy poetry, but I don’t look down on it, promise.” They started to page through the book.

“If you’re sure…But not all those poems are good, by the way. There are a lot of bad–”

“ _So great my sin, I did defile with lust their every funeral pyre_ ,” Chara began to recite. “ _The deed then done, I gave way to my base necrophagous desire_.” They looked up at him.

“That’s one of the bad ones,” he clarified.

“I wouldn’t say it’s _bad_ ,” they said, scanning down the page. Their eyebrows shot up when they got to the later verses. “Rather colourful and…morally obscene, but it could be worse. Reassure me: you don’t read this kind of thing for pleasure?”

“No I _don’t_!” he said firmly, snatching the book out of their hands and putting it away. “I read it for art!”

“Just making sure.”

The two of them were left standing, a rose and a sea of unsaid words between them. It wasn’t unsettling or even uncomfortable, but it was something that needed to be addressed. Probably. Chara waited for Asriel to do it.

True to form, he started fidgeting (with his sleeve this time), and looked at them from the corner of his eye. “Necrophilic cannibalism aside, do you…What you said in the forest – did you mean it?”

They blinked, since they hadn’t expected him to be _that_ uncertain. “Of course I did. I wouldn’t say that kind of thing as a joke.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was a _joke_ , per se, just…”

Reaching out a hand to the side of his jaw, they looked at him pointedly. “I was serious. Were you?”

“Of course I was!”

“Well, then. Works out neatly, doesn’t it?”

He seemed determined to make things difficult for himself, and while Chara would usually have been an advocate for that since they did it so much themself, it felt plainly unnecessary here. What was there to lose oneself over? Nerves? But nothing had changed. And if it had – like this new contact, the ease with which they could reach out to touch him and not feel invaded when he did the same – it was a pleasant kind of change.

“We’re going to have our hands full with the curse as it is, you know,” they said mildly as he stuttered and spluttered something. “Do you really want to act like this is any more confusing than it has to be? I feel safe with you, Asriel. I like being with you. I like this, and I want to help you with that destiny you’re so scared of. I can’t…I can’t pretend I’m the greatest person, or even a great person at all, but I’ll do my best.”

He seemed short of breath for a moment, and then he reached for their hands desperately, bending so he could press his forehead against theirs. He was a blur in their open eyes.

“I feel the same,” he said, his voice shuddering just a little. “I’m so happy you came here. I’m so happy you chose to stay. I’m so happy it’s you.”

It was nice to feel wanted so fiercely.

 

The gardens were freezing at night, even with a thick, fur-lined coat on. The snow hadn’t settled, but the cloudy sky looked ready to give it another try. Chara kept their head down, their hands stuffed in their pockets, and followed the urge they felt pulling them through hedge-lined paths. The castle had been better than its word (since its word had been non-existent), and they felt the faithful need to follow wherever they were being guided.

This turned out to be to the very outskirts of the gardens, almost to the front of the castle. There, they stopped in front of a solitary flower bed enclosed between two buttresses. They looked down at the barely-illuminated orchid waiting for them. Like Asriel’s rose, it was lightly yellow in the middle, but its petals were sturdier, waxier, and there were several thick buds on the stem, though only one flower was open.

Chara didn’t wait long enough to feel nervous: they (regretfully) took their hand out of their pocket and stroked down the orchid softly. In the time it took them to put their hand back, there was a small sound, like someone waking up.

They inhaled. “Excuse me, but are you the king of the monsters?”

A short pause, which gave them all the time they needed to regret every choice they’d ever made. Then, “I am,” came a cautious, gruff voice. “I do not believe I have met you.”

“I’m sorry: you haven’t. My name is Chara. To keep things short, I’m a human who came here recently, I live here with your son, and I’d like you to tell me everything you can about the curse.”

“Has anything happened?” Still, he sounded on his guard.

“No, we just…we want to break it. Obviously we do – I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say – but now we’ve decided to work together to break it, it’s…” They weren’t sure how to justify this, how to get him to trust them.

When he next spoke, however, their worry seemed unnecessary. “I must apologise, my child: I heard an unfamiliar voice, and a human at that, and I could not help but think…But if you say you are working with Asriel, then I have nothing to fear.” Suddenly he was all warmth, as reminiscent of Toriel as it was possible to be. “I am Asgore, and I am truly glad to meet you.”

They relaxed, slightly.

Introductions were difficult, but Asgore seemed to do his best to put them at ease. He was the one to lead the conversation, which was the way they liked it, and also more fitting, since he was so distanced from the world of the uncursed. Naturally, there were things he wanted to know: how they’d come to be in the castle, how Asriel was getting on, what they already knew about the curse, and each question was asked so gently, each answer received so considerately, that it took a long time for Chara to realise they were being led astray from their original subject.

“And you are sure he is eating properly?” Asgore asked, after similarly confirming that Asriel was getting fresh air, keeping himself occupied, and not being rude to whatever strangers he might come across.

“I’m sure, really,” they half-lied, since they rarely saw him eat at all, what with how self-conscious he was about his mouth. He didn’t seem to be wasting away, at any rate, and they saw a chance to get back on the track they wanted to be on. “But, please, could you tell me about the curse?”

Asgore didn’t answer straight away, and Chara shifted their weight from foot to foot, trying not to think about how they would have been glared at for talking to their own father so brusquely.

When he did speak, he sounded far sadder than before, which they supposed was to be expected. “Are you certain you wish to know?”

His reaction spurred them on. “I am.”

“You are certain you wish to break it, no matter what?”

“I am. This is…this is my home now. Please: I want to help.” _I want to be useful, I want to be worth something_ , they didn’t say, because it would only raise questions they didn’t want to answer.

“And…how old is Asriel, now?”

They had to think about that. “Eighteen or nineteen, I believe. I don’t think I’ve ever asked, I’m sorry.”

“No – no harm done. It has been a long time.” His voice reflected his words: it sounded as if he’d lived for an age, filled with all the sorrows the years brought. “It was foolishness, I think, to hope that anything would happen without taking action. To imagine that everything would smooth over of its own accord. It was tempting, but foolishness still.”

Chara didn’t pass comment.

“I am sorry, Chara, I do not mean to confuse you. I will try to keep it as simple as I can. In truth, it is not as complicated as all that. We were all of us cursed, as you know. I did not think it possible, and so I took no precautions against it. I did not think it possible, because to birth a curse of such immense proportions, the human mages had to use blood magic. I was not able to find out how long they planned it, nor how much blood they eventually used, but the ambassador we had there confirmed that the final movement of the spell was the sacrifice of a human child.

“By the time I was told this, it was already too late. There was nothing we could have done either way. Our magic cannot stand up to blood magic: that is simply how things are.” He swallowed, though his voice was quite calm. “A year passed, and the curse’s effects began to be seen all over the country. Indeed, many monsters had already come to live here in the castle, since the curse seemed to eat us from the borders in. I received a message, then, explaining the details of the curse. It was not…official, I think. It is my own theory that one of the mages sent it in way of apology, as if to help us.”

_You knew. You knew how to break it and you didn’t do anything as your people faded away_ , Chara didn’t say. There wasn’t much point: self-blame was already thick in his voice. Snowflakes began to fall, glistening on their sleeves for a few moments before melting away, and they shivered, waiting, because they wouldn’t nag him about something like this.

They felt calm. They’d already decided that whatever the curse needed, they’d do it, no matter how long it took. They had no idea how curses were usually broken, but they’d go anywhere, find anything, _do_ anything. They’d decided that long ago.

Asgore breathed in, and said, as if everything was normal, “They told me that the curse could only be broken by two children – a human and a monster – giving up their lives.”

Chara stopped breathing.

“I was repelled by the idea,” Asgore went on, oblivious to how their expression had settled into stone. “I told no one, and as people fell down I still told no one, growing stronger in my resolve that nobody should be sacrificed, that there had to be another way. Our royal scientist was so close to finding one, I was sure, so I promised myself that it would not come to the murder of children. I told myself that not one of my people would die, and now…now there is only my son to pay for my own selfishness.

“If I could have sacrificed myself, I would have, but even had I met the criteria, I was not sure I would be able to force a human to die alongside me. Not against their will, and the way humans saw us back then, it would have been. And so we are here, and I have placed a greater burden on you than you had bargained for. I am so sorry, Chara.”

They barely heard him. It was beautifully poetic; they wanted to laugh. It made perfect sense, and they were the fool for not thinking of it, not even once. They were the fool. This was perfection: a knife handed to them on a plush cushion, an unmistakeable order, and they only had to take it like they’d wanted to the first night they’d come here.

It was so easy.

So simple.

“Chara?” Asgore was clearly trying to be soothing. They couldn’t blame him: all he could probably hear was their steady tears, the fluttery breaths and small whines from the back of their throat as they pressed the heels of their hands to their eyes and sobbed.

It was everything they’d ever wanted: here was a death nobler than they deserved.

“Chara, I am so sorry. I did not mean to give you such a difficult choice…”

“It isn’t…” they gulped, an ugly sound. “It isn’t difficult. I’ll do it. I don’t know if…if Asriel will, but I’ll do it. I want to. I,” –they breathed in heavily– “I want to die for everyone. I want to free everyone, and if I have to, to die for that, then that’s _fine_.”

“Chara…my child, I cannot ask you to–”

“You can,” they said in a choked voice. “You can. You don’t even have to. I’ll do it. The…the letter the mage sent you: where is it?”

“I left it in a drawer hidden behind my desk,” he said. “But Chara, please think about this. This is not a decision to be taken lightly.”

They laughed wretchedly, still rubbing their eyes. “I know. I’m not taking it lightly: I–…I didn’t come to this castle thinking I’d live past the morning. This is something I know how to do. I’m ready.”

They weren’t. Their thoughts were rudderless boats on a stormy sea, so all they could feel was bitterness at how unfair it was. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to give them things they wanted to protect and love, and then ask them to die for it all. It wasn’t fair to do this now, when they’d been so prepared the first night.

But things _weren’t_ fair. And there were ways in which things were done: here, they knew exactly which path to take. There had never been any uncertainty.

“It is alright to admit that you are scared,” Asgore said gently. Chara got the impression he’d be putting a fatherly hand on their shoulder if he could. For a brief moment, they thought they’d welcome it.

It was cold, and the winter wind slipped down their neck.

“Thank you,” they mumbled, because they weren’t sure what else to do. They wanted to go back inside. They wanted to discuss it with Asriel. They wanted to leave, to move away from Asgore’s tangible guilt, because that wasn’t something they wanted to have to accommodate for, not now. But he comforted them as best he seemed able to do: with soft words and sounds to put them at ease, and always that feeling that he would have hugged them, given the choice. They did eventually stop crying, and – their chest feeling utterly devoid of anything – they left him with weak goodbyes and a promise to fix everything. He protested that, but they didn’t pay it much mind. He couldn’t possibly think that two lives were worth more than a whole people’s.

They mulled it over as they walked back to their room, infinitely grateful that Asriel wasn’t there. They didn’t need to be reminded that they’d have to ask him to die along with them. But there was no other way to do it. He’d see, wouldn’t he? They were both children enough for it to work, Chara was sure. It was so perfect. It was so, so perfect.

They had to choke back tears again, letting themself into their room based on touch alone.

There, as usual, the candles flickered into life the moment their foot touched the carpet, and they sighed deeply in an effort to ward away another crying fit. They had to breathe heavily for several seconds before they trusted themself to open their eyes and go to sit on the bed. Their boots began to unlace.

“You knew, didn’t you?” they asked dully.

Laces unknotted and hung limply.

“You’re the curse: of course you knew. And you wouldn’t take me to him unless I asked, because you knew. You should have told Asriel.”

No answer.

They laughed weakly. “You’re right: what purpose would that have served? He couldn’t have done anything until I came here. It was all–” they hissed in pain as their knee shrieked at them for bending over to take off their boots.

“What’s going _on_?” they cried, so frustrated they could feel tears pricking their eyes again. “It shouldn’t hurt like this! What did I do to deserve _this_ on top of everything else?!”

That time, they did receive an answer: a waistcoat appeared next to them on the bed.

It was the one they’d worn earlier in the day, embroidered with buttercups. Their knees creaking, they straightened up to brush their fingertips down it. The movement made the beads sewn onto the front of their tunic glitter golden in the light. They held one of the beads up in their hand. Tiny golden flowers, just like the ones they’d picked in the forest that afternoon. Buttercups everywhere, all from the castle, as if it was trying to tell them something.

Their knees hurt, and they knew then that it wasn’t the type of ache that would eventually dissipate. Because they’d plucked themself.

Chara laughed. They sunk to a crouch, embracing the pain, and laughed. Of course they had a flower. They _were_ one: a bud brought into bloom by the sun’s light and withered by the same. That was what they amounted to.

But beyond the irony, beyond the exhaustion, beyond the bitterness, it made them feel so warm to be accepted by the castle in this small way. They could only laugh.


	9. Your Heart is Yours Alone

Upon waking, the first thing Chara noticed was the sheer noise. It was dimmed by the castle walls, but it was still enough to drown out any thoughts they might have had. Reluctantly filled with a sense of urgency, they climbed out of bed and strained their ears for meaning amongst the far-off cacophony, and somewhere along the way they remembered that the world had inverted itself the day before. Things like that happened sometimes.

There were already clothes hanging over the foot of the bed and they scrambled to pull on serviceable trousers, wincing when their knee protested the bending required. Their hands froze for a moment in tying the laces almost to the base of their jaw: like it was some sort of joke, there were buttercups embroidered into their shirt. But perhaps it wasn’t a joke: perhaps that was just their insignia. It wasn’t anything to worry about, not now they recognised the shouting for what it was. And what a novelty to run towards shouting for once.

The door swung open in anticipation as they walked towards it, and their pace increased as they made their way down the corridor, no matter the chagrin of their stiff body. It was child’s play to grit their teeth and sprint down the stairs, trying not to think of how much their legs hurt, or what that meant for their future, such as it was. Mid-way across a landing, they cracked a smile.

Their future. At least it wasn’t going to draw itself out.

Only once they got out of the front doors of the castle did the irregular shouts split up into recognisable sounds and words. Chest heaving, their hair a ragged mess around their neck, they stopped to breathe with one hand on a support pillar, and stared out at the entrance gates.

Asriel was there, predictably. He was roaring at what seemed to be nothing, but could just as easily have been someone beyond the gates, back in the forest of crippled, charred trees. That on its own wouldn’t have stopped them (more likely, it would have made them stalk over to him to ask what on earth he thought he was doing). It was his words which held them in place on the front steps, just too far from the gates to hear anything but his voice.

“I said you can’t!” he yelled, the words breaking up into growls that reverberated through Chara’s lungs. “I don’t care! Just go _away_!”

A short pause, and they almost caught the shape of someone else’s voice before it was whisked away into a sharp clang of metal as Asriel grabbed the metal bars. Folding their arms tightly against their chest to keep warm, Chara tiptoed out down the main drive. Asriel was shouting again, much the same as he had before, but they began to hear the other voice properly as they crushed frosty grass under their numb feet.

“Why not?! I’m not asking for–”

“I said, _leave_!”

Asriel’s voice was sounding less human by the second, fittingly. They came to a stop when they were a scant distance behind him, but hidden so that neither he nor the visitor saw them. It was just as well. They felt colder than winter winds alone could ever make them.

Asriel reared up to his full height. “I’m not going to say it again.”

“But you have it, don’t you? I…I’m not asking much! Just the body, even just five minutes to mourn properly! I’ll leave then, and we’ll never bother you again, but you _can’t_ –”

Asriel interrupted with a voice as impersonally cold as frostbite. “You are never going to see them again. You can’t honestly think you deserve it.”

A pause, in which time Chara did nothing, because they had never felt more unfeeling in their life. They certainly didn’t need the time to work out what was going on: that had been obvious the moment they recognised their sister’s voice. But speaking seemed an impossibility too high to ever scale.

Beauty laughed bitterly. “Why would that matter to you? Why would you care at all?! You’ve had all the time you could possibly want, so just let me do _something_ for my sis-…sibling,” she finished brokenly.

Asriel stiffened. “You can’t do anything for them.”

“But I want to try!”

“What, weeks later? Is that supposed to move me?”

“What does it matter if it moves you or not?!” she hurled back, her weak voice battling against the snarling growls that still escaped his teeth. “You killed them!”

“He didn’t,” Chara said quietly.

There was a jackdaw crying some way off in the dead forest, its call crackling through the silence. It had been so long since Chara had come close enough to the borders to hear birds. Their whole body felt numb, no matter how they hugged their arms to their chest. They should have taken the coat the castle had flung at them on their way out, they realised. Too late now.

Slowly, Asriel turned around, and they were so close that they had to strain their neck upwards to meet his eyes, gooseflesh erupting on their throat. His face – not gifted at neutrality, even at the best of times – was stricken with horror. Almost childishly so, like he’d been caught at something he’d never have wished them to see. Of course, that was probably the idea.

The gates clashed again, and Chara turned to see their sister gripping the freezing metal as if for support, but without quite leaning on it. Beauty hadn’t changed. She was still tall, her hair still a mass of black curls, and her skin was paler than usual from the cold, so that the beauty marks stood out on her neck and face like blots of ink. There was still something hard about the set of her mouth, still something unforgiving in her dark eyes, but of course she was beautiful. She always was, even ragged after her journey, standing amongst twisting, blackened trees.

Sometimes the world inverted itself: one simply had to resign oneself to it.

Without looking at him, Chara said quietly, “Asriel, could you leave for a few minutes? Please?”

He did, and they were glad they hadn’t seen his expression as he did so, because Beauty’s reaction to it was all they wanted to know. It took a few moments, but then there were the sure sounds of him walking away, their sister’s eyes following him.

And then she turned her eyes back to them and everything was nothing like it had been before. She was as pressed up against the gate as she could be while maintaining some degree of dignity, but they were three paces away and unable to walk closer. They kept their arms folded, suppressing shivers.

“I’m fine,” they said, stupidly, as if she couldn’t see it. They cursed themself for saying anything. They cursed their reedy voice, their choice of words, their initiative.

Beauty, knowing none of this (or perhaps she did: she had paid attention to them, sometimes), took a step back from the gates, letting her hand drop from the metal. She showed none of the joy one might have reasonably expected her to express, had she been in the same situation with quite literally anybody else.

But, eventually, she said, “It’s a relief to see you. We thought you’d died.”

“I thought I would too.”

She nodded. Chara could appreciate that she didn’t avert her eyes in embarrassment.

“I won’t pretend to understand the situation, but I take it he isn’t about to kill you soon?”

“Unlikely.”

Stiff, stilted and stage-like, and Chara only wanted to run away. They hadn’t asked for this, Beauty hadn’t counted on this, and it showed, since neither knew what to say. They’d never been close, anyway. She wasn’t even smiling, but then, Chara wasn’t either.

They had to make an effort: wasn’t that how these things were done?

“How have you been?” they asked in a small voice, shifting their weight as if that would make them any warmer. They left it to Beauty to decide which ‘you’ they meant.

“Surviving. Quite amply, really. Nothing’s changed much since you left: no grand misfortunes to upset our daily lives, so it’s just work as usual. Ploughing, mostly, and discussing new methods of land drainage for the spring.”

They frowned. “Why would you need to? We don’t…”

Beauty politely ignored how they’d faltered at ‘we’. “I’m getting married. Stephen Crowen – we’ll be putting our properties together.”

“Oh.” It was strange, how one could feel one was drowning in what should only have been small-talk. “I didn’t know you had an interest in him.”

“I don’t. I don’t love him, and I barely care about him, but we need the income.”

Chara nodded, taking the chance to lower their head and fiddle with the side of their sleeve. There was an odd set of buttons sewn on for no discernible reason and they spun them with their fingers.

“Beauty, why did you come here?”

“Because someone had to.”

They looked up. Her eyes were as unforgiving as ever; it was like Chara had forgotten and every time their eyes met it was a discovery. Beauty wasn’t in one of her compassionate moods.

“Father wasn’t going to do it,” she continued. “No one was, and someone had to. People shouldn’t have to die alone, torn apart by beasts with no one to bring their body home. You deserved better than what we gave you, and you deserved some show of respect after your death. That’s what it was.” Her every word breathed resentment, and Chara was choking on it. They always had.

It was like they were back in the village, a stain on their family again. They felt so, so small, as if everything they’d learnt in this fairytale castle had been dusted away with the mere presence of their older sister.

Valiantly trying to ignore the pounding of their heart, they swallowed and asked, “Do…do they know you came here?”

“Yes.”

“Look, you don’t…you don’t like me,” they said to their feet, curling their frozen toes up in the sand of the path. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I did,” she said firmly. “I know you’ll only complain again and tell me I didn’t, that I shouldn’t push myself to pretend to care about you and all that, but I hope you can appreciate that I _did_ have to come, and that it wasn’t such a sacrifice as you’re making it out to be.” She paused, taking in Chara’s expression, and let out a brief sigh. “Don’t look at this from your perspective. I know my coming here after your death would have meant nothing to you. Look at it generally: when someone goes off to die, the least their family can do is go to mourn the body properly. The _least_. We may have failed you in every other respect, but this, I can do.”

“You didn’t have to,” they repeated.

“I just explained to you that I did.”

“Beauty, you didn’t have to for–”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” she cried, and there was a rush of flapping as a bird leapt into the sky behind her. Chara lifted their eyes to her again, as if stung, and they knew with wretched certainty that their every emotion was shown brokenly on their face. As if she cared: she was the same.

She ran a hand through her hair, and it struck Chara just how much more drawn her face was, how tense her shoulders, than in their memories. “I’m sorry. That was too far. You have every right to feel sorry for yourself, and I know it. But for goodness’ sake, Chara, can’t you see that I felt guilty? Don’t you know that there are ways people do things? There’s decency to think of, and basic respect for another person, no matter what I think of you personally. It isn’t as simple as just the two of us: you have to understand that.”

Of course they understood. They nodded meekly.

“It might not mean anything to you, especially after everything I’ve just said, but I tried,” she said, her voice thick. “I swear I tried.”

They nodded again. She’d been the only one who had, but they couldn’t appreciate that. They just felt as if they’d been stripped to raw flesh, and every word of hers was salt.

What were they supposed to feel? Was it allowed to look back on a life abandoned and to turn away from it? They didn’t want any of this. They wanted to run back to the castle and forget what they’d been in favour of what they’d become; forget this miserable sense of smallness crushing them down to size.

They wanted to be better than this.

It took several minutes of silence, but Beauty eventually shook her hair out and set her jaw. “I won’t tell them,” she said. “I’ll say it was as I expected it to be, unless you don’t want me to.”

“No, that’s… Please don’t tell them I’m alive.”

She nodded. “And will you be alright? How have you been?”

They opened their mouth to remind her that she didn’t have to fake interest anymore, or – upon seeing how she’d fixed a smile in place – flood them with false praise like she once had, but they stopped themself. They took a moment to arrange their answer and to dispel the jealous need to shield their life here from the outside world, and said, “I’m doing well. Better than before.”

“Good,” Beauty said, and it sounded heartfelt. “You’ve always been a good person, Chara–”

(They weren’t, they weren’t; she was just layering on praise and compliments like it could make up for a dearth of love)

“–and I hope you can live a life that makes you proud here.”

They bit their lip, but said, “The same to you. I hope you can be happy in your marriage, even if you don’t like him now.”

She winced. “I hope so too. Either way,” –she tugged at her coat, shuffling her feet– “if you ever want to come back, there will always be a place for you in my home. I can find things for you to do, and you will always be welcome.”

She came forwards, lifting a hand through the bars, and Chara walked towards her so she could touch the side of their face. They were so cold, they couldn’t even feel their knees complaining. Beauty patted their cheek, for a moment an older sister incarnate, and then she dropped her hand, turning away. Chara stayed at the gate, watching until she was completely out of sight.

They didn’t know what to think, so they didn’t think at all.

The walk back to the castle was a challenge, but luckily not a long one. They could scarcely move their fingers by the time Asriel came swooping out of the front doors like a hugely oversized guard-dog, an impression not at all harmed by how his ears flapped at the sides of his head while he was running. But then his hands were engulfing theirs – so warm they didn’t even feel it for several seconds – and they had the worried gaze of wide black eyes to answer to. It was too cold for smiling; they leant into his chest when he offered it.

“Are you alright?”

Both his voice and his childish agitation were familiar to them. They knew this, didn’t they? This was who they were.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re… Is she coming back?”

“Not as far as I know.” They hoped not. To every deity and lack thereof that might take pity on them, they hoped not.

“So you’re…you’re staying? You’re staying, aren’t you?”

There were better places to have this conversation, because they were already being forcibly reminded of what they had to tell him today, and this was the last place they wanted to do it. Or maybe they just wanted to put it off. It was too easy not to say things.

“…Chara?”

He’d asked them a question. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, I’m staying. Of course I’m staying: did you think I’d leave?”

He had: his silence was enough to let them know that. Despite everything they’d hinted at or outright told him, he’d thought they were going to leave for a place where they were no better than a not-quite-broken piece of furniture, to be endured until they could be got rid of. Here, they were someone worthy of gentle hands on their shoulders and the sweetest smile from a face that shouldn’t have been anything less than terrifying. He dazzled them.

“You’re going to call me stupid for thinking you would,” he said, still smiling, “but I couldn’t help but be a _little_ paranoid. So if that’s stupid, then I guess I am, but I think it’s worth it because I feel so happy now.”

“Better to lower your expectations,” they nodded in understanding.

“Exactly! And I– Oh, I _am_ an idiot. You’re freezing, aren’t you?” They didn’t quite have the time to nod before he lifted them up into an arm, carrying them without any real effort, apparently. It was stupendously unnecessary and very welcome; they rested their head against his neck (he was wearing a cravat, which was also stupendously unnecessary, but they played with the folds anyway).

“Don’t get angry at me,” he started ominously, “or I suppose you can, though I’d prefer you didn’t, but I sort of…I knew she was coming. I think I mentioned it before, but there’s this mirror in one of the hidden rooms that can show you parts of the surrounding villages and stuff like that,” he said, waving his free hand as if to imply this wasn’t interesting. “She’d been planning to come for several days, and it was really weighing me down. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to worry you, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it and imagining worse and worse outcomes.”

They – or he – walked inside, and Asriel closed the door firmly behind him. The temperature was almost sweltering in comparison to outside, and Chara realised the castle must have heated itself up artificially – yet another thing that was overwhelmingly unnecessary. They didn’t really know what to say about the mirror. It just sounded fake. They didn’t think he was lying, but they weren’t interested in magical mirrors: they were far more preoccupied by the shake in their hands and the sound of their heart in their ears as they tried to find a way to bring up the curse.

He didn’t give them a chance: again, he clasped their hands and smiled so widely that they were sure it must have hurt. “I’m so relieved,” he said, almost laughing. “I didn’t even realise I was worrying about this so much, but the thought that you’re going to stay with me is just so…! I’m so happy!”

Projecting his emotions to the world seemed to come naturally to him, and they didn’t mind as long as it kept them from making mistakes. But here, they felt like their feet were immersed in layers of mud. Were they supposed to ruin everything again? Was that what they were here for? A born bearer of bad news, ready to rip his smile off and remind him of who he was.

They couldn’t do that: they were weak, and they smiled in return instead. They kissed him so they wouldn’t be able to say anything, and they hated themself bitterly.

 

He stayed by their side for the rest of the day and well into the next, and somehow they couldn’t find the right words. Each silence was already filled, each opportunity not the right one, but the root of the problem was how happy he looked. They couldn’t bring themself to ruin that. 

Yet another opportunity landed neatly in their lap a few days after Beauty had come to the castle: they were practicing the piano half-heartedly, and he was listening, because he seemed to enjoy that. There was a chord progression they couldn’t quite play fast enough, the span of their hands being too small, and they were just trying to resolve the problem when they realised how quiet it was. Immediately, words bubbled to the surface of their mind: ‘ _There’s something I need to tell you…_ ’, ‘ _I talked to your father…_ ’, ‘ _About that curse: we’re going to have to die_ ’.

They clutched the edge of the piano stool, feeling light-headed. It was as good a time as any. Opening their mouth, they turned round only to see Asriel fidgeting in his seat as if possessed.

“Is something wrong?” slipped out of their lips, sounding nothing like what they’d been repeating to themself.

“Huh? Oh! No, I just…I just suddenly got this idea of something I want to paint, and I’m really feeling it,” he laughed nervously, as was his way.

“You should go and do it, if you’re feeling it,” they said. If they sounded hollow, he didn’t seem to notice: suddenly he was all protests and apologies, and it took all their meagre skills of persuasion to make him understand that they were not going to be offended if he didn’t listen to them practice. And so, still apologising, he hurried off, leaving Chara alone in the music room.

They let their hands slide from the keys, sitting straighter on the piano stool. Dust floated in the air around them, lit up by the streaks of late afternoon light pouring in through the curtains, and they found they weren’t in the mood for playing anymore. Wrapping a shawl around their shoulders and grimacing at how it made them feel like an old woman (and yet the castle had insisted), they left the room.

If they couldn’t tell him, there was at least something they could do, no matter the dread it stirred up in them.

It took longer than it should have to find the old king’s rooms. One might have reasonably expected them to be obvious – lusher than the others, perhaps, or at least larger – but they weren’t, and in the end Chara had to give in and ask. The castle obligingly guided them to a set of rooms which were absolutely no different from any of those surrounding them, and Chara went straight for the desk in the sitting room. They’d been turning Asgore’s words over in their head so often in the past days, trying to find a way to convey them to his son, that forgetting where to look would have been impressive. They almost wished they had, but in a flimsy way, since that would hardly have been a reprieve: they would have just had to go and ask again. Better to be straightforward about it.

Their hands shook. On this side of castle, there were only long shadows and unlit candles, since it wasn’t quite dark enough yet to light them, and the first time they looked, they weren’t able to find the so-called hidden drawer after they’d pulled the desk away from the wall. They had to run their fingernails over the wood, and then tug hard enough to bend a nail back, only to find out once the drawer was open that there had, in fact, been a tiny handle. How anyone with hands bigger than theirs was supposed to use it, they had no idea.

The drawer was filled with things they shouldn’t have even seen, let alone been free to read: private letters, trinkets, and – they smiled – a few small pictures obviously drawn by a very young child. It took some sifting through before they found something that looked to be the right letter, and then they closed the drawer and put the desk back, sinking into an enormous armchair to read.

Naturally, Asgore hadn’t been lying. The words were very clear: ‘ _two children, of monster and man, must give up their lives_ ’. Chara’s eyes fixed on that before they’d even read the first line, and they came back to it again and again as they forced themself to read the whole thing. The faded handwriting felt imprinted into their eyes by the time they came to the end. The regrets oozing from the letter didn’t interest them, nor the implorations for forgiveness and understanding. They didn’t think they felt much of anything.

It wasn’t as if they’d learnt anything new.

Their future was still set in stone, and they were still the one who’d have to break it to Asriel that his peaceful purgatory was going to end. The faint hope that the letter would offer a different solution (not that they’d ever admit to thinking that) withered and died. Without the presence of mind to sigh or make some kind of remark to the castle, they folded the letter, slid it into their bodice, and got up.

The walk to the forest was a lot longer when they weren’t impassioned, made even worse by dragging their feet and dawdling at the lake. It was dark by the time they started to climb through the trees, but the castle had anticipated this and they were carrying a lantern. It didn’t take much searching to find the patch of buttercups: it felt like they were the only splash of colour in the whole forest. Chara stood over them, holding their cloak closed and staring at the flowers without much emotion. What was there to think?

They briefly considered stepping on them, but that just seemed needlessly self-destructive. They looked so weak anyway. There weren’t as many as Chara had thought: just a handful or two scattered on rough ground that shouldn’t have been fertile enough for them to bloom. Chara crouched down, brushing the petals of a few flowers, but they didn’t feel anything. It would have been absurd if they had, of course, but they’d had to try.

It still didn’t feel real.

Their hand hovered above one flower, the shadow wavering on the ground, and then they reached down and pulled it from the earth. Stringy, dirt-covered roots lay lifeless on their palm and they didn’t feel anything. It was only when they got up to leave that they found their right ankle was too weak to stand on, and they limped the whole way back.

 

They didn’t dream of anything in particular that night, or at least they didn’t remember if they did. All that they were left with when they woke up was a dripping, creeping sense of dread, and it took them marginally longer than usual to remember who and where they were. Staring at the ceiling, they tried to muster up courage they didn’t have.

“I’m going to have to do it,” they said, barely above a whisper. The castle didn’t respond, but whether that was because it had nothing to say or because it knew it wasn’t being addressed, they didn’t know.

“You’ll be set free too,” they said, getting up. “Aren’t you happy? Or I suppose you can’t be, since you’re going to disappear. Will you? I don’t actually know. It doesn’t seem like anything else would make sense, since you’re already dead.”

In way of answer, clothes draped themselves over the foot of the bed, as usual, and a breakfast tray appeared with a tiny clatter on the table. It wasn’t much of an answer, really. Chara took a gulp of tea and got dressed.

The clothes weren’t anything special, but there was the buttercup waistcoat again, worn over a shirt with a collar stiff and tall enough to very nearly choke them. It didn’t quite hit the lobes of their ears, but it was a close thing. Because that in itself wasn’t enough, there were a good few feet of starched neck-cloth, and just as Chara was wondering how on earth they were expected to tie a neck-cloth on their own, the fabric began to twist itself. All they had to do was stand still and wait in front of the floor-length mirror, fiddling with the high waist of their breeches.

The castle didn’t stop there, though. Chara stood for several minutes more, watching as invisible fingers combed through their hair, tied it up, and strung delicate chains across the buttons of their waistcoat. It was done with care and skill they couldn’t hope to reach, so it was probably for the best that it was done for them, but they also found they enjoyed it. There hadn’t been any warmth in those fingers, but Chara still felt cold when they were gone.

“Thank you,” they said, fingering a silver chain and the tiny, twinkling diamond attached. “I’m sorry I can’t do anything else for you. This needs to happen, doesn’t it?”

Nothing.

“I think it does. I don’t know, but I think it does, and that’s all I have right now. I’m sorry if you don’t want me to do it but can’t tell me to stop: I’d hate to hurt you like that. You’ve done so much for me. Thank you, for everything, really.” They felt the strange lightness of imminent tears and struggled to swallow. “I wish I knew your name.”

There were probably ways the castle – or the curse, or the child who’d died for it – could have told them. If they could tie up hair, then they could scratch words on wallpaper, but perhaps they didn’t know how to write. Perhaps they just didn’t want to say. Either way, Chara received no answer other than an overwhelming sense of being held, but that was enough. It was more than they’d expected or deserved.

Heavy solemnity fell on them as they left their room, and it took fierce concentration to ward it away. That wasn’t going to help. They didn’t need to be solemn or powerful, or even dignified: they just needed to stay determined. At least, with everything behind them like this, they weren’t sure they’d be able to slither away into cowardice.

In fact, they didn’t give themself the chance. They’d only exchanged greetings with Asriel, just coming down the stairs, when they blurted out, “I found out how to break the curse.”

He stopped, one foot frozen in mid-air. It took a moment before he put it down. “Really?” he asked, breathless. They wished they hadn’t given him the time to raise his hopes.

But there were no two ways about it, so they nodded. “I talked to your father. He admitted it was probably time to break it, and he told me, but– no, don’t look like that: there was a reason he didn’t want to tell you before. He doesn’t even want us to do this, and I’m making a complete hash of this when I promised myself I wouldn’t, and I’ve practiced it so many times, but – _please_ don’t look at me like that! I’m sorry. The…the only way to break it is for a monster and a human to kill themselves. So, us. That’s why.”

They’d brought the letter with them, since it only seemed natural to do so, and they gave it to him without another word. Holding it unsteadily as if he was afraid of ripping it, still halfway up the flight of stairs, Asriel read through it. Multiple times, given the time he took. Then he handed it back. Chara – their hands raw from rubbing together – folded it up and put it in their pocket for lack of anything else to do.

“Are you sure?” he finally asked in a broken voice, walking down to the second floor landing. He didn’t take their hands, or reach out for them, and they were surprised at themself for noticing.

“I’m sure. I mean…that letter is the only proof we have, but it’s also the only thing we have to go on at all, so…”

His hands were shaking, but he clenched them at his sides, his breath unnaturally steady. “Chara, what are we going to do?”

“What do you mean? We don’t have a choice, do we?”

He looked at them properly then, and they saw from his shock that he genuinely hadn’t been expecting that answer.

“So, what, you want to… You want us to kill ourselves?”

“What else is there?”

“What else…is there?” he repeated dully.

“Don’t you want to free everyone? This is the best way of doing that, isn’t it?” It wasn’t a hypothetical question: they were beginning to feel unnerved. They wanted some sign that he was on the same lines they were, or that he at least understood them. Instead, he looked so dumbstruck by the very idea they were offering him that they felt they were losing their footing. It was like his eyes – so close, so close – were piercing them and they had nowhere to run.

“But we’d have to…” he started, and then stopped himself. There were a horrible few seconds of waiting as he closed his eyes and breathed in, before saying, “You want to, don’t you? You’re already set on it. You’ve already decided.”

Of course they had. “Is that wrong?”

“Well, it’s a bit hasty, don’t you think?” he laughed without any trace of mirth. They had to stop themself from taking a step back from him; he looked threatening without seeming to be aware of it.

“It’s not that hasty,” they protested. “I always knew I’d do whatever it took…”

“And you thought I was the same,” he finished for them. “But you can’t say that, because if you do then you’ll be calling me a coward.”

“Don’t put words into my mouth.”

“But it’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Because I’m reluctant. Because my immediate reaction to this isn’t ‘Well, I’d better off myself, then’.” He moved backwards to lean against the banisters, and it was only once he had that Chara realised how trapped they’d felt with him looming over them. Absurd, to feel that way on a spacious landing.

His jaw was tight, his shoulders hunched and his claws digging into the woodwork of the banisters. He wasn’t looking at them, and they were grateful for it. They’d been expecting tears, they thought, not this. Not the heavy silence that followed. They couldn’t leave, since they didn’t know where they’d go, and he didn’t say anything or invite any conversation. There was nothing they could say, because, in a way, he’d been right. Their course of action was obvious: why couldn’t he see it? Why couldn’t he accept it?

Wasn’t this what he wanted, too?

It wasn’t ideal, and they weren’t _happy_ about it. They didn’t necessarily want to die like this, but how were they supposed to live knowing that while they did, hundreds of people – or thousands, or more, they didn’t know – were left in stasis? They’d never be able to live like that. They wanted to be better than they had been, better than the small, overshadowed child who never did anything right. So it was all obvious. They were sure it was all obvious, but the idea could just as easily have been maturing in their mind long enough to start rotting with no one else’s perspective to shed light on it.

“Are you set on this?” Asriel asked, his voice gruff. It barely sounded like a question.

“I…I don’t know. It’s what I have to do. Isn’t it?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if regaining control over himself. When he looked at them, they saw the tears they’d been expecting, and they hated it. “Why are you asking me that? I can’t decide this for you, Chara. I don’t know enough about this solution, and I’m not convinced by some letter from years ago by someone we don’t even know we can trust. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to believe this is the way to break the curse. Why are you asking me? Why are you making me choose this?”

Because they’d already chosen, but they didn’t say that.

“I don’t know anything about this! I got up this morning thinking nothing was going to change, and now you’ve told me I need to die to fulfil my destiny or something, and I’m supposed to just run with it? Am I supposed to accept that? Am I supposed to be grateful? I’m not like you, Chara: I don’t want to die! There are too many things I don’t want to give up.” He ended raggedly, quietly.

They didn’t know how to respond to that, because on some level he was right. On another, he was hurting them, maybe purposefully, and they couldn’t say anything because he was hurt too. All around them, pictures and vases and furniture were wobbling, clattering about in a way that seemed genuinely worried.

Standing here, feeling as if they belonged anywhere else, Chara thought they might have underestimated the situation.

“Do you actually want to do this because it’s to save everyone, or do you just want a reason to die?” Asriel asked without giving the impression he expected an answer.

They didn’t give him one, regardless.

“If this is what you want to do, I can’t stop you,” he said. “I can’t tell you whether this is what you have to do or not: I can’t ask you to live if you don’t want to. Of course I don’t want you to die – it’s like I could never want anything less – but I can’t change your mind about this if you’re set on it, and fuck, Chara, I…” He took in a laboured breath. “I don’t want you to feel this way, I don’t want you to want to die, but I can’t change that! Clearly, I can’t change that. I can’t die with you happily, and I can’t make you not want to die, so really, I don’t know why you’re asking my advice on anything.”

The sourness in his voice clouded everything else, and it took them a moment to understand what he was implying.

“Asriel, it’s not your fault.” _It hardly even concerns you_. “You can’t do anything about me feeling the way that I do: it’s not your responsibility to change that.”

They were filled with the bitterness of betrayal. It was the wrenching disappointment of realising that someone felt they had to take care of you, were making allowances for you, were treating you like an object, to be handled carefully. And no, no – he probably didn’t feel like that, or not to that extent, and he was probably just upset that his being here wasn’t enough to keep them from wanting to die for this, but, but…

But still.

He caught the expression on their face before they could wipe it away.

“Don’t look at me like that!” he cried – not angry but hurt, which was worse – and the chandeliers shook, singing a high-pitched chorus of alarm. “Why can’t I be upset about this too? Why should I have to be the one who acts like he’s fine?! I can’t help you: I’ve tried so hard to show you how I see you, I’ve tried so hard to show you that living isn’t actually that bad, but it hasn’t worked.” The anger left his voice and he slumped, his back hunching over. “It hasn’t worked, and I’m not blaming you for that, because it’s not your fault, but it hurts. It hurts when I love you but you’ll take the first opportunity to kill yourself.”

“That’s not it!” They twisted their hands in the fabric of their jacket, desperate to release their tension. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you not being enough for me, because you are! It’s _not_ just about killing myself: I swore to myself I’d try and free everyone, no matter what I needed to do, and this is the perfect chance. That’s all, Asriel: it’s just because I need to do what I can to save them. It’s not like… I wouldn’t be doing this if there was someone better qualified, but there isn’t: there’s just us. And I’m so sorry, I don’t want to ask this of you, I know it’s not fair–”

“You’re right: it’s not fair. It’s not your fault, and it’s not fair. I don’t want to do this,” he said, staring at the carpet. “I don’t want to die. It’s what I was born to do, but I don’t want to do it, and I don’t want to give up this happiness when I’ve only just found it. I don’t want to do it, Chara, I…I don’t want to die.”

They should go to him, comfort him. There were so many things to say, but what good were they at reassurance? They stood stiffly, watching him as he began to cry. It was ugly and it didn’t suit him. They didn’t want to watch, but they didn’t know what to do, because there was this thin hope that, given time, he’d come to them and they’d be able to go through with the plan.

Was that what they wanted?

They were worthless if they didn’t die here, for this purpose, but what kind of person were they to force the person they loved into killing himself?

They’d hoped he’d come willingly. A lover’s suicide, or something less dramatic, would have been fitting, they thought. It wasn’t going to happen. Looking at him here, all thoughts of duty and responsibility and self-worth drained out of their mind; with halting steps, they walked over to him and wrapped their arms around him as best they could. Standing while he was on the ground, they were at the right height for him to press the side of his face to their chest, for them to lean their head between his horns, and it almost felt like they were protecting him. He cried – the sobs twisting into bestial growls and whines – and they rubbed his back, their eyes closed.

“I don’t think much of myself,” they said softly when he’d quietened into snuffling. “You know that, but it might be a bit worse than you think. But, either way, you help. You’ve helped me so much, and I can’t thank you enough. I don’t even think I want to: I think I just want to be with you and show my gratitude that way, forever.

“But I can’t see how I can live with not doing this. I want to better myself, I want to do something worthwhile like I never could have done back with my family.”

“How is this bettering yourself?” he mumbled. “You’re not doing anything. You’re just killing yourself. Didn’t you want to do that before?”

They hadn’t thought about it like that. It seemed stupid, but they’d never thought about it like that, and they felt like their guts had been pulled out of them; like they were back to being small, mute, useless.

“No, Chara, don’t.” He sounded tired, but he moved to hug them properly, stroking their hair. “Forget I said it. You’ve changed so much since you came here anyway: it doesn’t matter if you think this way of improving yourself isn’t worth it anymore. You’ve already improved.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Well, try and trust me anyway.”

It was a profound mess of conflicting desires, and they could only nod. Every way they looked, it came back to the same thing: regardless of anything else, they knew they wouldn’t be able to live knowing that they had the power to break the curse. There was a limit to human selfishness, surely. But they didn’t know what to do. It was like both of them understood but neither wanted to say it and Chara didn’t know what to do they didn’t know they didn’t know they didn’t they didn’t they

“I don’t want to live without you,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure I can, now I’ve known you. I can’t go back, and it’s…it’s worthless if you kill yourself alone anyway. I don’t want to do it, but I don’t want to not do it either. But it’s so…it’s so violent.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” they rasped. “I didn’t tell you, but I found out I have a flower too: a patch of buttercups out in the forest. We just have to destroy those and your rose. It’d be easy. Rip them, or burn them, or poison them, or…or eat them, I don’t know. Anything. It wouldn’t have to hurt.”

He sat back on his heels, and they moved away so they could see him properly. They were the one to reach down and take his hands in theirs, shifting their weight on their feet.

“I love you,” they said, and the words felt foreign on their tongue. “This isn’t about me not having enough reason to stay, it really isn’t. If the situation was different, I’d gladly die for you instead.”

He nodded, eyes still filled with tears. “I’d give up my life for you too, in a heartbeat.”

The simple truth of it was like a salve, making them both smile weakly, smoothing over the pain and hurt and frustration, and it took Chara a moment longer than it should have to notice the low rumbling all around them. Before they could really process it, Asriel screamed.

Shock paralysed them – they stood still as he crumpled to the ground, holding his head and breathing so heavily it sounded like the very air was scraping through his lungs. In less time than it took to reach a shaking hand out to him, the rumbling that crashed through the castle was so loud Chara couldn’t even hear him anymore. They could only watch – powerless, because they always were.

It was over quickly, but they felt every moment pounded into their body. The rippling of his fur, the unnatural arching of his back, the sickening twisting of his bones visible even under clothes. His body was shrinking, and as the rumbling died down, they could hear his body crack and crunch into new arrangements, even above his howls of pain. There was something else, too: a wailing that didn’t come from him, like a child crying. And then it stopped, and the candles all went out. Chara fell to their knees, still holding their hand out; everything went quiet. After the chaos, the silence was like a gaping hole.

They didn’t even think a full minute had gone by.

Asriel was still curled up, whimpering, and their fingers finally reached the top of his head. His horns were smaller, like the rest of his body. They curved differently. They were spattered with blood and Chara didn’t want to think about that. Instead, they traced their fingers down to his ears (smaller, but still the same shape, the same colour). His face was buried in his hands, and though he was shorter now, they still had to crouch down to try and bring his hands away. There was no resistance: they cupped his face and turned it up to look at them.

If he had been a monster before, he was a monster now too. He still had an animalistic mouth and nose, thick, sharp teeth coming out from his jaws. His skin was still covered in the same fur, and his hands were still padded, still ending in claw-like nails. There were still a thousand things setting him apart from a human, and that was fine, because the starkest difference from before was inhuman too; his eyes were like liquid honey.

“You’re…you,” Chara breathed.

“I’m what?”

They hesitated, taken aback by how light his voice sounded now. “You’re you. You’re…not like before.”

They shuffled back and both of them got to their feet – for the first time, Asriel was only a head or two taller than them. He stumbled, and they reached out to steady him, taking his hands in theirs. It felt like they were actually holding his hands this time, not being engulfed. His clothes hung baggily on him, and he looked around, twisting this way and that to try and see himself. They noticed he had a small, fluffy kind of tail, which was new.

All of it was new. It was unbelievable, but in an understated way where Chara didn’t want to shout out in surprise or protest how illogical it was: they were just waiting for more unbelievable things to happen.

Asriel looked sick. “I think I’m going to faint,” he said mildly, and Chara moved closer, as if they could possibly support him if he did faint. He didn’t, fortunately.

“What do you think happened?” they asked, looking around them.

“I have no idea. I mean, I really, really don’t, unless this is the curse broken, in which case that would be _wonderful_ but also I’m not sure if I believe it,” he babbled. “And really, why should I? We’re still alive. We just _promised_ to give up our lives: that’s not the same thing as actually doing it.”

“You think the curse’s standards were too low?”

“Well, they were, weren’t they? _If_ that’s what happened.”

Chara laughed, pushing their forehead into his now significantly-smaller chest. “Don’t complain about it!”

“I cried, Chara! I was really upset! I feel like I’ve been cheated!”

“You’re still assuming that it really is broken.”

“Well, isn’t it? I’m back to normal. And I can’t feel the, um…the curse. The one who looked after us.”

It was true: they couldn’t have put their finger on what had been there before, but there was a stunning sense of something lacking around them.

“Oh,” they said, wilting a little. “That’s…oh. I knew it would happen, but I wish…”

“I wish I could have said goodbye.”

Chara nodded. “But there’s still no proof: we don’t know that everything’s–”

They stopped, silenced by the realisation that they could hear distant voices. Ordinarily, they wouldn’t have paid it any attention, but the very presence of _other voices_ here was enough to make them pause. They looked up to see Asriel smiling widely, and it didn’t look monstrous at all.

“I think that’s the proof,” he said in a smug voice.

They were about to retort something that didn’t really need to be said when they heard one voice rise above the rest: deep, distressed calls for Asriel.

“I think that’s your father,” they said. “He’ll think you died.”

“What? Oh wait, he will, won’t he? Oh gosh, that’s not good. We should…” His hands were trembling in theirs.

“We should go down,” they finished for him.

He nodded, but neither moved. They were looking at each other, and Chara’s thoughts were not so much racing as coming to a leisurely stop, because they simply didn’t know how to react. Was this something one was supposed to react to? Couldn’t they just keep living through it?

“This doesn’t feel real,” Asriel said, as if to himself. “This is a dream, isn’t it? Nothing’s felt real since I woke up, but that transformation thing really hurt, so maybe it wasn’t a dream.”

“I don’t think it’s a dream. I never dream anything this vividly. Shouldn’t we just go downstairs?”

He nodded absently, but still made no move to leave. They had to tug on his arm to get him to walk. Once they reached the stairs, he asked, “Chara, are you disappointed?”

They gave it some thought, leaning on his arm when their ankle made it difficult to walk. “I don’t think so. I wasn’t really set on killing myself for the sake of it: I told you I wasn’t.”

“You still feel, um, that way inclined, though, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” they shrugged. “Not right now, I don’t. Right now, I want to see your parents in the flesh, even though I’m utterly terrified of making a bad impression on them. Is that why I’m shaking so much? Only you’re shaking too, and I don’t see why you’d be scared.”

“I haven’t seen them since I was a baby! Of course I’m scared!”

“That makes sense.” They reached a landing, and the voices were closer; they could hear heavy footsteps coming nearer now. Chara stopped walking, tugging on Asriel’s arm to stop him too, and looked up at him.

“We’re probably going to have to talk about what just happened. And what we said to each other.”

Asriel grimaced, and it actually looked endearing rather than unsettling. “Can we do it later?”

“Of course we’re going to do it later: did you think I meant now? What do you take me for?”

He put a hand on their arm. “You really are shaking. Do you want me to carry you?”

“I bet you can’t even do it in that body,” they scoffed, trying to smile though they felt closer to running away as fast as their aching legs would carry them.

“Bet I can.”

“Bet you can’t, but don’t prove me wrong right now: they’re coming.”

They both stood still, waiting, the light from the stained glass windows behind them stretching their shadows out down the stairs. Chara tried to breathe steadily, but it wasn’t easy. They were filled with nervous energy, and all they could think about was what was going to happen from here: the people they’d be able to see, how the kingdom was going to be rebuilt, what they’d be able to contribute. It would have been a pity to kill themself with so much to see happen, so much left to do.

Whoever was coming up the stairs had almost reached the first floor landing: they were almost in sight. Asriel squeezed Chara’s hand reassuringly, and they managed to smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
